Lost Album Artwork in iTunes 9

[Leigh Hibbins]

Since upgrading to iTunes 9.0 (and 9.0.1) I have lost half the album artwork in one, but only one, of my iTunes libraries. All the song files in this library are of resolution 24 bits/48 kHz and are stored on a network attached external hard drive. When I try to re-add artwork to these albums it at first seems to stick but after a couple of seconds disappears.

This happened with a previous major iTunes upgrade – 6 to 7, or 7 to 8, I can't remember. Apple eventually provided a fix, but nothing seems to be happening this time and I have not seen that anyone else has this problem.

Any suggestions anyone?

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Leigh - What format are your files? Wav, aif, aac, mp3, etc...

 

[Paul Held]

I banished all iTunes artwork problems - forever - through all recent upgrades - by embedding the art in the files. That is, copying and pasting the art (howsoever sourced - from iTunes itself, or another source) into the song files after I get it.

 

Works like magic and allows the files to be manipulated anyway I have needed to (Vista to Mac swap out, home to cottage moves, library splits for lossless to portable, you name it). Before this, whether or not the art stuck seemed an act of pure random chance and caused big frustration indeed! thanks, Paul

 

[Leigh Hibbins]

AIFF

 

[Leigh Hibbins]

How does one embed art in files?

 

[Paul Held]

no problem - once you get the cover you want (again, howsoever sourced), select all the releavant files in iTunes, "Get Info" on them, paste the cover art into the cover art spot on the Info panel and save it. Each of the actual song files will now have that cover art truly embedded into it. No matter what you do with the files, and no matter what Apple does with the iTunes cover art scheme (they have changed it a couple of times already - e.g. to accomodate coverflow), the art will come along for the ride. Doesn't matter where the files reside relative to where iTunes or the iTunes library resides - makes you completely independent. As I said, it has worked for me through multiple upgrades, moves, changes, etc. Paul

 

[kurtmelancon]

http://www.tuneupmedia.com/

 

This is an easy way to get all of your coverart and clean up your library. I downloaded the full version on sale for $24 and it did all the rest.

 

It's a slick little program.

 

There are a few albums it didn't work for but it worked perfect for 95% of my music library.

 

[Lowlands]

I use this (drop cover art via 'get info' dialog) whenever iTunes can't fetch a cover I need. I just get it from whatever cover site and drag & drop it in..

 

Question: Does it matter what size the file is that I'm dropping (I use AIFF). Should I avoid dropping large files.. say, if it is a 6Mb scan... I did not see the AIFF files themselves get any bigger on such an occasion.. Do you know where/how these are stored and if iTunes reduces the graphic to a certain size..?

 

Thanks!

Hans

 

 

[Paul Held]

No issue in my opinion Hans - the art is small stuff compared to the size of the AIFF or ALAC file. Makes no difference to speed in iTunes, or any other apparent impact other than the ease of use and security I highlighted above. The art is stored in the song file, as opposed to some proprietary iTunes scheme, which is what catches everyone out eventually.

 

The better the art the better it looks obviously. I've captured and re-pasted new art for selected covers several times. Amazon is a great source for this. People like us put their own better cover art scans onto Amazon (don't just check .CA, or .COM, also check .UK or other Amazon's for specific stuff) and it often improves on what was there. In general, the Amazon scans have also improved I've found.

 

Paul