XXHighEnd

I thought to create this topic to share our mutual experiences for the best places to get coverart (album pictures).
Please take into account that a 300x300 picture can be used rather well, but that larger pictures really are better, *and* will be explicitly used in future XXHighEnd versions. Obviously the pictures should be of the best quality. Their filesize is irrelevant, since lossless audio files are so much bigger anyway (say 700MB for a CD and 200KB for a good picture).

I myself come up with these :

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amazon (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/002-8350142-3333626?url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords=&Go.x=8&Go.y=9) :

Generally good pictures of good size. Search is a bit awkward, and it relatively takes much time to get to the large size picture.

Discogs (http://www.discogs.com/search?type=all&q=doors+%22alive+she+cried%22) :

A good escape for dutch titles, often not found on Amazon. Good pictures of good size and quality which can be found fast. Searching itself is something to learn here, with paying attention to the indications that *you* searched wrongly (miss one character and you get a list of unwanted results).

Slothradio (http://www.slothradio.com/covers/?page=2&artist=pink+floyd&album=dark+side+of+the+moon) :

Never really used this yet, but it may be the fastest *if* you immediately find the picture of the size you like. It's obvious that this doesn't find them all. Start with this one, and have the other on-line as well, might be a good option.

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Note : Be careful to save the pictures in the best quality, which would be "100%" and "1:1" once in the JPEG save program. Do note that these both are not the default, and saving with these settings make the filesize grow. However, do not go like this, and the picture will be (significantly) worse. Remember, the filesize of the pictures are really irrelevant.

Just found this little puppy of a proggy:
Album Art Aggregator
http://team.thenexusnet.com/nexus/AAA/

Also, I know this is being picky and a pain for everyone that has already named their covers "folder.jpg"  But instead of folder shouldn't you call it "cover.jpg"  I think a lot of new people may have theirs named that.

Yes, that's the way to go (did not try/download that).
I already planned to build such a thing in XXHighEnd.

Small warning : There are more of these around; be VERY careful that they don't override your precious *already good* pictures. But also : that they don't mess up with sub folders for multi volume albums; for XXHighEnd counts that if there's a folder.jpg, it prevales above the folder.jpg one level up.
Here speaks one with experience ...  :)

About the cover.jpg ...
In an earlier version of XX you indeed could tell what the name is. I removed that temporarily because at that time this kind of data would not stick (at a next startup). Today this is arranged for. So I will put it back.
Note though that "folder.jpg" is a standard, several software works with (like XX now, hehe).
Otoh, there are also standards coming up for "backcover", "booklet", to name a few.

I didn't know folder.jpg was a standard.  The program "Album Art Aggregator" starts up with cover.jpg, which seemed to make more sense then folder.jpg... hehe be nice if there was a true standard.  Was going to start trying to collect album art and just don't want to name things over again.

Moderator Edit : Do not use below link, unless you've read this : http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=121.msg1434#msg1434
(I did dot check anything, so it's just a warning).
Peter


http://www.cover-paradies.to/

may have some things too, there are about 300.000 Covers downloadable. *One* banner/advertisement
getting in the way while you first use it, from then on it's ok.
(and there are absolutely no women with no clothes on appearing on your desktop after you've visited it...)
It's german though, but "Suchbegriff" is the word over the Search Field so it's pretty easy.
Covers are user-scanned and uploaded, quality differs from medium to superb but they really do have some covers that
amazon or walmart i.e. don't have.

Good site that has helped a couple times... I am surprised that on some artists they have nothing? (Cal Tjader) and then on an obscure artist they'll have something ? but glad to have the link... also, when they do have something the album art is big!.. i just dl 1024*1024... only place I've found to do that... usually it's just 500*500

Here's a hint... sometimes Amazon only has a small pic when you click on the cd, but, if they have the album as an MP3 dl, go there and the album art will be 500*500.
edit
Hmm I just dl a 500*500 from regular music area... just for kicks I went to the mp3 area and looked at the art there... also 500*500, BUT much better quality pic from the mp3 dl area... who knew mp3s could be good for something!

Yes Peter... I should get a scanner :/ sigh I hope I don't end up buying one and redoing all this hehe
edit
but everytime I'm just about to give up... I find what I'm looking for in better quality than I thought I could ever hope to find
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/94/9d/538d225b9da09a9772e31110.L.jpg)
Who would have thought I could find this 4 cd box set image of Count Basie stuff ?
edit ... again
and then there's this one, which I've spent nearly 45 min :/ trying to find a better pic aarrggg
(http://cover6.cduniverse.com/MuzeAudioArt/060/62913.jpg)
The above is a great great album too.... someone buy and scan it for me in hirez pls heh... maybe I will have to look into a scanner... but for now, back on the hunt

Oh nice page...

Try the search function for an artist and zillion of cr*p virus starts to download it self.

Pure BS.

Use a scanner. Bert does. The coverarts he has are just ...WOW.

Gerner

Hmmm... I'm using Windows2000, which I think makes me pretty open for attacks...
I'm directly connected to the web, didn't have any trouble with cover-paradise yet.
I do use a scanner, Avira AntiVir, updated on a daily basis.
Scan report is o.k., Guard says it's o.k. BitDefender at my office also thinks it's o.k.  :blink:
What scanner do you (or somebody else) use that can detect viruses on that site?

Hope the recommendation didn't cause any trouble... :scare:

Maybe I exagerated a bit calling all this pop-ups and key cach humble bumble flick-flack innocent snot for a virus.
Let me re-define: Irritating small smartass programs that leads you wanted url's elsewere. Disable things in the root and so on...  :(

I use McAfee online scan and a physical firewall and have pretty many other tools in the drawer if anything needs to be thrown out of my PC. Which happens.

Gerner

Perhaps confusing but...next to a virus scanner I also use another type of scanner to make my own cover arts. I guess this is what Gerner tried to explain... ;)

Bert

Hi Bert,
Yes, I understood Gerner about using a scanner to scan your cd covers.  But, I also wear protection and also did an online virus scan at Trend Micro last night to be sure.  Also cleaned out the registery with Regsupreme... I think things look good.  But anyway...

After spending huge amounts of time looking for a couple of discs last night (why wouldn't there be an album cover for Jack Teagarden? doesn't everyone listen to him?)   I took my neighbor's offer up on borrowing a scanner he has... I woulda bought one after last night but he has a couple, so one to loan.  Now, I'm sure I'm going to go back and redo some stuff :/... I dunno, I have the originals, so I shouldn't obese, but that is me.  I may still look online first, I'm just learning how to do this resolution/dpi/scan/crop/resize/align/save ....and it still takes time to do; any hints there?  What dpi should I scan at, what should I size the cover as?... am I making sense, cause I'm not sure.  Thanks all.  Time to scan in Jan Savitt and his Top Hatters and Psychograss albums... why isn't this stuff on the net? hehe

PS
This looking for album art has taken so much of my time I haven't had time to evaluate the new player 0.9p, I'm still using 0.9m-1.  Now that PeterSt has added all that support for those [strike]cr*ppyworthless[/strike] other formats, I hope all that [strike]nasty[/strike] code hasn't messed up the sound of my [bold]glorious[/bold] WAV files.

96dpi is equal to the screen resolution (for most displays). What you get from that is a 1:1 physical equally sized picture (and 460x460 or so size).
I don't JPEG the h*ll out of it (I leave everything at max quality which would be "1:1" for JPEG and the least compression).
24bit colordepth is fine.

This brings 150K-250K files.

Thanks Peter,
Just coming back to see if someone had left more info.  I've been figuring it out now,,, a bit.  Good thing I haven't done too many scanned pics this afternoon, I set the dpi much too high, but that's ok for the few I've done.  I was just looking at the pics I get from walmart, (which look pretty good).  They're at 6.944"X6.944" (500X500 pixels) size, 72X72 pixels/in., ~54KB... so your recommendations will be better quality than that.  I'll work around your numbers when I scan, your pics look great..., but to go at this quicker, I'm still taking a quick look first at walmart/amazon.  Scanning doesn't take too much time, heh, but hunting down the disc from my disorganized (ever since I ripped em all) collection is another thing.  Thanks for the info.  Dave

PS
Listening to my father (Robbie Robinson) on an anthology of his trombone playing I made of him... he's 86 and still plays gigs, but I'm glad to have some recordings of him, a lot were lost over the years :/ but I put some of him with Red Nicoles and also of him playing with the Disneyland Band on my HDD (he worked there many years to get off the road and raise a family).  I'll send pics with.... Man, I never knew how lucky I was to grow up and hear him all the time live, miss though concerts.

edit
what,,, nobodies up with me!  here it is 4am and I'm still adding album art sigh... the good news is I'm finding/scanning all the music I have, the bad news I'm only half way done, and I'm prolly being optimistic

edit...hmm
ok, and why didn't somebody tell me to scan more than one cd cover at a time... i'maidiot hehe oh well first day/time with it