TMO Quick Tip - iTunes: Finding Album Art

by , 7:30 AM EDT, May 28th, 2008

Apple's iTunes Store may have an impressive collection of music to choose from, but it doesn't have everything. Since iTunes finds artwork for CDs you import comes from the iTunes Store, that means some of your albums may end up artwork-free -- unless you look to album artwork Web sites.

Amazon.com is a common place to look for album art, and in many cases you won't need to look any further. Just search for the name of the album you need artwork for, and see what comes up. Despite Amazon.com's extensive CD inventory, you likely won't find every album in your collection, and some of the artwork is pretty low quality, which translates to fuzzy or jaggy artwork on screen or on your iPod.

Amazon.com sports artwork for most of the CDs it sells.

One of my favorite Web sites to look for high quality album artwork is albumartexchange.com. This Web site includes an always growing collection of album covers, all scanned at high quality so you see great images in iTunes or on your iPod. The downside to albumartexchange.com is the same problem you'll find at other album art sites: Not everything you want is available.

albumartexchange.com sports lots if high quality album cover scans.

Once you find the artwork you want, it's time to add it to iTunes.

• Select the album you want to add artwork to in iTunes.
• Choose File > Get Info.
• When iTunes asks if you want to edit information for multiple items, click Yes.
• Drag the image you want to use as the album cover into the Artwork field.
• Click OK.

Drag images to add them to your iTunes albums.

Adding artwork to your albums in iTunes makes it easier to visually identify music in Cover Flow view, and since you can include multiple graphics with albums it makes for a great way to keep back covers and liner notes with your digital music collection, too. Of course, there are application that can help with the art collection process, like CoverScout and Curator, which sounds to me like a great topic for another Quick Tip.

One last tip: Keep in mind that some of the graphics you find may be protected by copyright laws, so remember to treat the images appropriately.

Jeff Gamet is TMO's Morning Editor and Reviews Editor. He lectures, teaches and speaks on Mac OS X and design-related topics, and is the author of The Designer's Guide to Mac OS X from Peachpit Press.

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