High Quality Album Art?

[kizer]

Welp I just renamed the .exe file to PhotoResize150.exe and it will convert the cover.jpg file to cover-150.jpg of course at 150x150.

There are a bunch of switches, but honestly my brain hurts trying to figure it all out.
http://www.rw-designer.com/photo-resizer-advanced

To use a bunch of the switches you have to create a short cut and then put all your switches in the path of the short cut. Then to use app just drag a folder full of images on to the shortcut.

[bzpilot]

anyone know how to use kizers tool to also rename the files? I wanted to create a cover_small for all my albums.

This isn't Kizer's method but I have been useing a program for years and I do believe it will be the best method to go about this......

The program is called Faststone Photo Resizer: http://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm
The program is FREE for home users!  The current version is 2.6.

Once in this program you'll need to set up some different settings:

1) Use the Batch Convert

2) The "Source" folder will be your main folder/directory that contains all your Music, Videos, and Karaoke

3) The "Output" folder needs to be set to the same folder/directory as the "Source"

4) Output format .jpg

5) Select "Use folder structure in output format." - this will make sure all resized pictures are placed in their original folders

6) Select "Use advanced options." - This is where you will select the Resize tab and set your dimensions (suggested size with current stock skin: 170x170 for small size and 450x450 for large)

7) Select "Rename" - Here you have plenty of options on what to rename the file, select the "?" to show you your options; examples are: "*small" will give you "coversmall.jpg", "*2" will give you "cover2.jpg", along with tons of other options

8) Select "Ask before overwrite." - this is optional.  One benefit is if you have messed up the settings and attempt to overwrite your original .jpg file (this can happen if you don't select the "rename" option)- you can catch it here.  The only issue with this setting is, that if you have already run this program and are attempting to run it again, you will need to confirm each overwrite of your coversmall.jpg (or whatever filename you choose for your second .jpg).


It may sound a little intimidating at first but really only takes a minute to setup and once setup you can save the settings and each time you run the program those settings will automatically be reloaded. Really the best way to go about useing this program is to use it once on your full collection, and then only use it on the folders of your new additions to keep from getting issues with producing extra files like: coversmallsmall.jpg (which would be one of the files created in a folder already containing cover.jpg and coversmall.jpg useing the option above).  You'll see what I mean when you play around with it.

It's a pretty impressive little program with a million options, most of which aren't needed in this situation but is a good piece of software to have around.

Not sure how Barry is going to set the options for this within Freebox.  He may have an option to search for a specific named second .jpg like "coversmall.jpg"), or he may leave the name up to the user by useing an input box for a name to look for?  Just be ready to change your settings in the "Rename" section to what is needed by Freebox when this option is finally released.

[kizer]

Yeah I forgot about Faststone. I've used it a few times for other things, but it will do what your looking for as well. I've always used the app I showed earlier because its brainless once you set it up. Just drag and drop and its done. However its limited to the little features of what FastStone offers.

However if we are able to name the second file in the config I'll stick with what I have been using just because I'm lazy.

[Barcrest]

I tried kizers method before i posted. If i search for cover.jpg on my folder then drag those results to the exe i get a permissions error. I am going to try the other method now.

[Barcrest]

Ok i tried that method BZpiolot posted. The trouble is i have other artwork in thos folders and i needed to specify cover.jpg as the input filename so although i ran that i can't be sure my coversmall1.jpg will be the resized cover.jpg it might be a back image or something.

Anyway i have added a second text box so you can specify a filename for the smaller image to use when browsing covers. I will also use this smaller image on other screens like search results and decades etc. I just need to do some tweaking to it.

The easiest method would be using frosty's code but instead of building a cache folder it just made the smaller resized image into the music folder with a specified name.

[kizer]

Thats what I would do Barcrest.

For instance I'm going to be lazy and probably not use this new feature for a while because well I have to find new Artwork. So IMHO I would have two boxes.
Large Artwork cover.jpg > changeable to say largecover.jpg
Small Artwork cover.jpg

As I get time I could start collecting new artwork for the large covers or in this case small covers. Ah heck mine is the default so Im guessing I would need to shrink the existing 300x300 and get larger say 500x500 for the large.

My only question I guess is. Is there a way to set a backup just incase larger artwork isn't found? Or is it best just to create a second file and just rename it to the users file name he selects as a filler file until he throws in a higher quality image so the app finds it and uses it.

[Barcrest]

You can leave both boxes as cover.jpg and it will work as it did before the change. However if you specify a smaller cover, say coversmall1.jpg as i did then if it doesn't find that cover it will not show the cover.jpg. I had to do it this way otherwise all the extra file checking would have cause a slowdown and that's what we are trying to avoid. Check out the latest beta the code is in there. I must say the 170x170 covers make the paging albums a lot quicker on my machine.

[squirrellydw]

I don't plan on using this either unless it is built into the config and does it automatically.

[bzpilot]

Just a thought for those of you that have to get larger artwork or those who are still getting their original artwork.....

When I originally got my artwork I looked for the largest I could find (usually 500x500) and embedded it within the .mp3.  Now anytime I want to extract and resize I can just use MediaMonkey (the same program I used to embed it) to extract a copy and resize it to whatever I need.  Within MediaMonkey are the options for resizing and renameing the image while extracting a copy of it.

This would also help you Barry, that is if you only embed the cover image (because you currently can't be selective on what embeded image to extract at this time).

For instance you could extract once at 450x450 for cover.jpg and extract again at 170x170 for coversmall.jpg.  You can easily batch extract your whole collection at once very quickly too.

Also nice to have the embeded art if you ever use your music in portable audio formats that support it eg. itunes, ipods, iphone etc.

[kizer]

Barcrest sounds like I would just have to make a copy of every image but rename them to something else so there wouldn't be any need for error checking. Sounds like a plan.

I do feel there will be others like Squirl that do not want the extra work, but I think in the end if its not the Config its the user. Somebody is doing a bunch of work. Either somebody has to figure it out and code it or run some freeware and make it work.

Any recommended sizes Barcrest for large cover and small cover?

[kizer]

I don't embed because 16000+ tracks would make my collection larger than not having them all embeded.

Barcrest having way more than that would make the collection even larger.

[kizer]

Gave it a try using that FastStone app. Just make sure you test it before you change all of your files. Nothing worse than running it and having it resize and rename a bunch of files and figure out that you messed up.

I changed my images from 300x300 to 150x150 and set the names to
cover.jpg - large
cover-150.jpg small

I was tinkering with "spin on this" since I only have 10 albums loaded on my laptop. Normally using cover.jpg it was taking just shy of 3 seconds to from clicking the button to just over 2 seconds using cover-150.jpg as my small cover.

Great thing if you don't use it just leave both as cover.jpg, but if you want to enable it change the larger or smaller to whatever you want.

What I did wasn't scientific or anything, but .5 seconds per page load is still .5 seconds faster.

[fat-johnny]

anyone know how to use kizers tool to also rename the files? I wanted to create a cover_small for all my albums.

I found a way to use that progeam that kizer sent

http://www.rw-designer.com/picture-resize

to batch create the "cover_small.jpg" images in your music directory in the correct subfolders.  First thing I did was download it into a folder on C: called C:\PHOTO.  I named it photoresize.exe  (no switches, no sizes saved in the filename).  Now, to use this .exe file, we will use the command line method (not the drag-n-drop)

I launched a DOS window, navigated to C:\PHOTO  where photoresize.exe is located, and ran this command line:

photoresize -500x500 -i -r -n -q100 d:\music

This resized everything in my music folder (which is d:\music) AND all subfolders.  The switches:
-500x500    resized them all to 500x500 pixels
-i    resized them In-place  (no renaming, just overwrite the file)
-r   is recursive, meaning to scan all subfolders as well
-n   is to sharpen the image.  I tried it once without, and once with, and Iike the sharpened image a little better.  YMMV
-q100   is the quality of the image, 0 to 100.  I chose highest quality, which made the image a little bigger (each about 130-150kb when done)


Once I have all my "cover.jpg" images the same size and quality, it was time to use those images to make the 170x170 "cover_small.jpg" images, stored in the same folder.  To do this, I used the command:

photoresize -170x170 -r -n -q100 "-c<ROOT>\<PATH>\cover_small.jpg" d:\music

BE SURE TO TAKE OUT THE  -i  SWITCH from the first command line, or you will be resizing them and renaming them in-place (not good!).  We want to make a 170x170  COPY

Also, just type it in JUST LIKE THAT, the only thing you need to change is the very end in red.  Point it at YOUR music directory.  Other than that, leave the part of "-c<ROOT>\<PATH>\cover_small.jpg"  alone.......and include the quotation marks.  Just like I have it there.


And that was that.  Easy as pie.
Lemme know if it works for you guys:
FJ

[Barcrest]

Thanks for the walktrhough that was great... Is there a way to only re-size and rename the cover.jpg file. The problem i am having is a lot of my folders contain other cover art. Usual the back covers and other images like really hi-res version of the covers and inlays etc. There must be a way in the command line to tell it only to do cover.jpg as the source image i just couldn't figure it out.