Add Album Art to iTunes: A How-To Guide

[pzona]

This is a pretty specific question, but I figure someone here might know something about it...

I'm a few weeks away from releasing an album (not here to self advertise, but PM me if you're into mashups/mixes and I can send you a link to my demo (it's free of course) :P), and my friend is working on a cover for the album, so it shows whenever someone puts it on their iPod or whatever. I'm going to export all the tracks in a .rar file and then put it up for download on some free hosting site, and I want to know how exactly to include the album art so it goes directly to iTunes when someone extracts everything from the .rar into a folder and then drags it into their library.

From what I've been able to guess, you can just include a .jpeg image in the folder with the .mp3 files, and if you drag the whole folder into iTunes it reads the image as the album art. Is this correct? Is there something else I need to do (i.e. something to do with the properties of each individual track)? In addition, is there a specific size that the image needs to be for iTunes to recognize it? I'm totally clueless about this, so if anyone can help at all I would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

 

[Owen-]

Hmm I think you can do what you said with dragging a jpeg into itunes, but not having itunes any more, I can't remember

However there is another way to do it properly - might i recommend

http://sourceforge.net/projects/album-art/files/album-art-xui/

 

[pzona]

Nice, this looks like it should work. Thanks a lot!

 

[Owen-]

glad i could help!

 

[LudusRex]

I am not an expert in iTunes or album art, but I can suggest a few things based on my understanding of file types and organization.

First, it is important to make sure that the album art image is saved as a .jpeg file. This is a common file type that is recognized by most media players. It is also a good idea to make sure the image is of a high quality and resolution to ensure it looks good when displayed.

Secondly, it is likely that the image needs to be named in a specific way for iTunes to recognize it as album art. This could be something as simple as "albumart.jpeg" or "cover.jpeg", but it would be best to do some research or consult with someone who has experience with iTunes to confirm the correct naming convention.

In terms of size, there is no specific requirement for iTunes to recognize album art, but it is recommended to use an image that is at least 300x300 pixels to ensure it looks good when displayed.

Lastly, it is important to make sure that the album art image is included in the same folder as the .mp3 files. This will ensure that when the folder is dragged into iTunes, the image will be recognized and associated with the album.

I hope this helps and congratulations on your upcoming album release!