WebHelp:Album Art/5.0

Wiki Home > MediaMonkey 5 Help > Editing Files > Editing Artwork

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Artwork can be edited in a few different ways: via the Properties Dialog window, via the Properties dialog's Artwork tab, or via the Auto-Tag function. In all 3 cases, it is possible to save Artwork directly to the tag or to save Artwork files to a specified directory.

Artwork Settings

Under Tools > Options > Tags & Playlists you can configure how MediaMonkey saves Artwork for your Media Files.

MediaMonkey Options Tags & Playlists

• Image Location allows you to set if Artwork should be saved to the files tags, to a folder as an image file or both.
  • Image to tag will embed the Artwork file into each media file it is associated with. The big benefit is that Artwork will always stay with the media file, no matter where you copy, move, rename or sync the media file. This method does require a bit more disc space as each media file associated with the Artwork will have a copy of it. This method only works for File Types that support this. If a File Types doesn't support the Artwork will be saved as an image file instead.
  • Save to file folder will save the Artwork as an image file. This method requires a good organization of media files, so that the Artwork file is saved in the same folder as the media files it is associated with and that no other media files are in the same folder. You may get the Artwork associated with all media files in that folder on scanning (disable Scan file directories for Artwork under Tools > Options > Library from the Main Menu to prevent this).
• First Image per Album/Series is the filename to be used for the first Artwork you associate with the media file(s).
• Format for multiple images is used when associating any additional Artworks with the media file(s).

Using External Album Artwork Files

If you have external Album Artwork files you can have MediaMonkey associate them with your files on scanning. Under Tools > Options > Library from the Main Menu enable the option to Scan file directories for Artwork. When enabling this option make sure that you organize your media files and Artwork files together in a separate folder per Album/Series/Movie for the best results. Proper Album and Album Artist tags are also important when having external Artwork automatically associated with your media files.
Note that some other software (Windows Media Player/Windows are known for this) can create multiples Album Artwork files per Album which would all be automatically associated with your files in MediaMonkey if you enable MediaMonkey to scan for external Artwork.

Looking up Album Artwork

You can enable Artwork under Tools > Options > Metadata lookup from the Main Menu and MediaMonkey will try to automatically lookup Artwork when the file is played. MediaMonkey Gold users can have the Artworks automatically saved to the tags by enabling Update tags.

Edit Album Artwork via the Properties Dialog

To edit multiple Album Art images, click Edit > Properties, and select the Album Art tab in the Properties Dialog. All images that are common to the files(s) will appear; simply click Add or Remove to change the images associated with the track, and optionally choose whether to apply the displayed Album Artwork to all other files on the Album, or other selected files. You can do this on 1 file or multiple selected files.

The changes to the files will be made only after clicking 'Ok'.

Edit Album Artwork via the Art & Details Window

The Art & Details window allows you to quickly Add/Remove/Edit Album Artwork a single image at a time, for the selected file and optionally all other files on the Album. With it, you can quickly:

• Copy and Paste or drag and drop an Album Artwork file from anywhere on your PC into the Art & Details Window.
• Right-click Add Image to add a new Album Artwork file.
• Right-click Remove Image to remove the Album Artwork that appears.

For more involved operations such as editing of multiple images, right-click on Edit Album Art Properties. This will bring you to the Properties Dialog (see above).

Properly Passing Album Art to Converted-To Files

When converting audio files to a new folder, as opposed to replacing existing tracks, the album art is carried forward in the same format:

1) A song with art stored as per-track metadata gets converted with the original art also embedded in the metadata of the converted-to copy.

2) A song with art stored at the folder level, gets converted with a copy of the folder.jpg art.

This leads to a complication. Media Monkey users with playback hardware that does not support automated synchronization can use the convert format tool as a means of quickly copying playlists of individual tracks from many different albums into a new single folder, which they can then move to their portable playback device. In this case, the set of copied songs each have the correct art work only if each source song had its art stored per track as metadata. Otherwise -- if any copied-from song had its art stored at the folder level -- then the new single folder of song copies will have as many instances of "folder(#).jpg" as there were distinct folders in the copy-from set. (And in this case, there is no link between the new song files that lack metadata art to their original folder art .jpg. Instead, the metadataless songs will display the album art for only the first folder.jpg copied.)

There are two workarounds for this:

A) Do such conversions only at the album level, so that each conversion is to a separate new folder, each containing one copy of the original album art. This only works if you wish your playback device to have whole copies of the albums, as opposed to a select playlist of specific songs. It is also manual labor intensive, especially-so for large libraries.

B) Alternatively, before doing the conversion of the source playlist, copy each track's album art into metadata art (only necessary for each track in the playlist). This is also very manual labor intensive, but at least it allows users to create a song set for their portable device that selects just certain songs.

Users have requested a new option in the conversion tool, that would automatically embed folder-level album art from source files as metadata art in the converted-to files. For users with large playlists, this would ensure correct art in their portable device song sets, with no manual labor by the user.

Strictly, there is a third work-around: C) When initially building your song library, users can store all album art as per-track metadata. This is reasonable for users with no anticipation of future storage space limitations. However, Media Monkey users tend to be serious music collectors. Their libraries grow very large, especially over years of use. Further, some MM users also prefer to store higher quality art as part of their enjoyment of their libraries. In such cases, storing roughly 12 redundant copies of every track's art can consume a lot of memory. For such users, the above-noted requested software enhancement is the best answer. For everyone else, work-around C is probably the best option.

Related Information:

About Track Properties

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