EDIT: NEW BUG! Did iTunes 10.5.1 disable dragging of album art to the desktop?

[scootermaster]

Really? Or is something broken otherwise?

Cuz that's a method I often use to embed album art. Let iTunes detect it, drag it to the desktop, and then drag it back to the file and it's embedded.

So, that doesn't work anymore. Wha?

(In other news, I *think* 10.5.1 fixes the on-again/off-again "no album art in Finder" bug)

EDIT: New bug
Because I'm pretty much the "go to" source for obsessive documentation of album art embedding in iTunes, here's another one: Changes to the file, as shown in the lower-left art window, don't reflect until you change the song. In other words, if you're playing a song with no artwork, and then update it, it won't change until you've changed to another song and then changed back. I noticed this, eventually, when playing a file with bad artwork that I then updated. Couldn't figure out what was going on, and then finally realized it just wasn't updating.

Now you know.

 

[TheStu]

It doesn't embed when iTunes finds it?

Where are you dragging the album art from? Describe (maybe even with screenshots) your steps so we can try and replicate them.

 

[alent1234]

a lot easier to

find a huge picture using Bing Search
right click and copy it
select all the songs of an album in itunes, right click and select get info
find the tab with album art
right click in the box and paste

 

[scootermaster]

Okay, allow me to clarify:

It doesn't embed when iTunes finds it?

Where are you dragging the album art from? Describe (maybe even with screenshots) your steps so we can try and replicate them.

So, sure, if the song is available on iTunes, iTunes'll find it, and put it in its library, but NOT embed it into the file itself. That's kind of a separate issue.

But if iTunes find the art, what I'd do as a quick-and-simple way of embedding it to the file, is drag the art from the iTunes window -- the little art box on the lower left hand side that you can hide if you want -- to the desktop. It created an image file there. Then, I'd drag that image file right back to the lower-left art window, and boom, now you have embedded art. Sure there's probably automated scripts that'll do this (as well as pay-for-programs) but this seems to work for me.

So go ahead and try that in 10.5.1. Unless I'm crazy, it doesn't work (anymore)

a lot easier to

find a huge picture using Bing Search
right click and copy it
select all the songs of an album in itunes, right click and select get info
find the tab with album art
right click in the box and paste

Okay, that's by no means simple. My technique is this:

1. Google image search (medium or better)
2. Hover over image to find appropriate rez/copy, then click
3. Drag image to aforementioned lower-left corner image box in iTunes
4. Done and done.

I think that's much, much more simple.

Of course, if anyone else has great ideas for otherwise embedding images in iTunes, I'm all ears.

 

[TheStu]

Okay, allow me to clarify:



So, sure, if the song is available on iTunes, iTunes'll find it, and put it in its library, but NOT embed it into the file itself. That's kind of a separate issue.

But if iTunes find the art, what I'd do as a quick-and-simple way of embedding it to the file, is drag the art from the iTunes window -- the little art box on the lower left hand side that you can hide if you want -- to the desktop. It created an image file there. Then, I'd drag that image file right back to the lower-left art window, and boom, now you have embedded art. Sure there's probably automated scripts that'll do this (as well as pay-for-programs) but this seems to work for me.

So go ahead and try that in 10.5.1. Unless I'm crazy, it doesn't work (anymore)




Okay, that's by no means simple. My technique is this:

1. Google image search (medium or better)
2. Hover over image to find appropriate rez/copy, then click
3. Drag image to aforementioned lower-left corner image box in iTunes
4. Done and done.

I think that's much, much more simple.

Of course, if anyone else has great ideas for otherwise embedding images in iTunes, I'm all ears.

On my Air, 10.7.2, in iTunes 10.5.1. I dragged the image to the desktop and it copied. I will try it again when i get home tonight, make sure that I am on 10.5.1 (I recall updating but maybe that was my desktop).

 

[Bateluer]

I can check when I get home on my Air as well. But, I believe Album Art is copyrighted, could be related.

 

[lokiju]

a lot easier to

find a huge picture using Bing Search
right click and copy it
select all the songs of an album in itunes, right click and select get info
find the tab with album art
right click in the box and paste

This is how I've always done it. Still works but OPs way does sound faster.

 

[TheStu]

Nope, OP is right, I was not on 10.5.1 last night, I am now running it and you can no longer drag the album art out.

 

[scootermaster]

Nope, OP is right, I was not on 10.5.1 last night, I am now running it and you can no longer drag the album art out.

Yeah, WTF is that all about? I guess it won't matter for non-iTunes songs, as you'd just do the method I said before, but for songs where iTunes DOES have the album art, embedding it in the file is going to require a number more clicks. That's annoying. I wonder if that's somehow a small incentive to get people to use Match, or if it's just a bug.

 

[scootermaster]

Updated OP. Cuz, I'm sure you're all interested.

 

[manly]

I rarely run the latest version of iTunes. Personally I prefer the iTunes way of storing the cover art separately instead of embedding inside each MP3. Sure image data is relatively small, but is being unnecessarily duplicated per file.

Just curious, what's the advantage of dragging out the official iTunes cover art image instead of a high-res jpeg from Google image search? This "bug" doesn't sound like a show-stopper.

 

[scootermaster]

I rarely run the latest version of iTunes. Personally I prefer the iTunes way of storing the cover art separately instead of embedding inside each MP3. Sure image data is relatively small, but is being unnecessarily duplicated per file.

Just curious, what's the advantage of dragging out the official iTunes cover art image instead of a high-res jpeg from Google image search? This "bug" doesn't sound like a show-stopper.

The only advantage is the "official" iTunes cover art is auto-generated. So, if it's available in iTunes, why bother searching for it?

And no, the whole thing isn't a show-stopper, it's just:

a). iTunes has a history (starting around v9.1 I think) of seriously fucking up cover art, the way it's handled, how it shows up in Finder, etc. How hard could this really be?

b). I can't think of any conceivable reason why this is a "feature". I.e. why the hell did Apple disable that? On purpose? (Well, then why?) On accident? (Well, then it's a bug, and it needs to be fixed)

c). It's all still possible, it just requires a few extra clicks. The normal work flow was this: 1). Import song. 2a). If iTunes found art, drag from window to desktop, and back from desktop to window. Art is now embedded. Done. 2b). If iTunes didn't find art, find from google image, drag to window. Done. So 2b is obviously the same, but 2a is now 2a). Open file info (control-i, right click, whatever), 3). Go to album art tab, 4). Drag art to desktop, drag back to window/art tab (either one works). Done.

So it's just more clicks, more time, etc. And for an unneeded "feature", I think.

There is another change though (although I'm not entirely sure). On files wherein iTunes can find the art, the drag-drag back trick DOESN'T duplicate the art (this is a good thing) but does embed it. That's another caveat; sometimes you used to have 2 copies of the art, and you'd have to delete both, start from scratch, and then embed. It seems that when you embed the original iTunes artwork, it no longer duplicates it. I don't know for which permutations this works (iTunes found, off google, etc), nor do I remember the exact behavior, but this seems new.

::exhale::

 

[Tegeril]

You should file it in bugreporter.apple.com if you feel that it's a new bug in iTunes.