Embedding Album Art in MP3 Files
Filed under Podcasting
Album art can be embedded into MP3 files fairly easily using ID3 tags. However, before you start filling up all of your MP3 files with works of art, there are a few things that you should stop to consider first.
While MP3 files were not originally intended to store additional metadata within them, the release of the ID3 tag protocol in 1996 suddenly made this a possibility. However, it wasn’t until version 2 of the protocol became available that MP3 files could actually contain embedded album art.
So, before you start cutting and pasting huge graphics and adding them into your collection of MP3 tracks, what do you need to consider to avert potential disaster?
ID3 Tags and MP3 Files
A standard MP3 file only contains audio data, with no additional information about the artist or type of audio contained within it. To include such extra information in an MP3 track, tag data is usually added to the beginning or end of the audio file in ID3 format.
ID3 tags allow you to store additional information within your MP3 files such as the track title, artist name and even album art. If you’re not familiar with ID3 tags, you may find my previous article on What are ID3 tags in MP3 files? helpful.
Image Types
While the ID3v2 tag standard allows any type of image to be embedded in an MP3 file, it does advise that either PNG or JPEG formats should be used when interoperability with playback devices is required. Practically speaking JPEG images have been adopted as the de facto standard in this respect.
The ID3 standard is very flexible with regards to the type and number of images that can be embedded in a MP3 single file. The full list of different images that can be embedded are:
- $00 – Other
- $01 – 32×32 pixels ‘file icon’ (PNG only)
- $02 – Other file icon
- $03 – Cover (front)
- $04 – Cover (back)
- $05 – Leaflet page
- $06 – Media (e.g. label side of CD)
- $07 – Lead artist/lead performer/soloist
- $08 – Artist/performer
- $09 – Conductor
- $0A – Band/Orchestra
- $0B – Composer
- $0C – Lyricist/text writer
- $0D – Recording Location
- $0E – During recording
- $0F – During performance
- $10 – Movie/video screen capture
- $11 – A bright coloured fish
- $12 – Illustration
- $13 – Band/artist logotype
- $14 – Publisher/Studio logotype
Quite an exhaustive list, and while a single MP3 file could embed all of the above images, in practice only one image is ever usually embedded.
File Sizes
Unfortunately, any additional information that you add to an MP3 file will increase its file size and this is of particular importance when adding images due to their potential size, even with compressed images such as JPEGs.
However, this does need to be taken in context. For example, adding an 80kB JPEG image to a single 8MB podcast won’t have a significant effect; it’s only a 1% increase in file size.
If on the other hand you add an 80kB album image to every single track in your MP3 collection, let’s say of 1,000 songs, then you’ll need any additional 80MB of storage, which could otherwise hold a further 20 songs or so (another 2 albums).
Current Media Player Support
Windows Media Player embeds album art as 200 x 200 pixel images, although will display larger images if they are embedded in the playing file as a larger size. iTunes currently displays album art as 200 x 200 pixel images. The picture to the right is sized at 200 x 200 pixels by way of example and is 35kB in file size.
The resolution of the iPod nano and iPod classic screens is 320 x 240 pixels. The iPod touch screen is 480 x 320 pixels, more than sufficient to display images of 200 x 200 pixels.
The Current Standard
The majority of podcasts that include images embedded within them adopt an image size of 300 x 300 pixels.
The picture to the right is sized at 300 x 300 pixels and is 62kB in file size by way of example.
JPEG images of these dimensions will vary in file size (dependant on the compression ratio used and image complexity) from around 10kB to 80kB or so. A 300 x 300 pixel image is actually over twice the size of a 200 x 200 image, and will consequently lead to approximately double file sizes.
Adding Your Own Pictures
So if you’re producing your own podcast and want to enhance it with your own logo, or just want to embellish some of the tracks that you already have in your MP3 collection with album art, what’s the best way forward?
It’s probably best to standardise on JPEG images to ensure that your artwork can be seen on the majority of possible playback devices.
Image sizes are probably best set at 300 x 300 pixels to display in reasonable quality on most playback systems. However, if you’re concerned about the space taken up by these images, 200 x 200 pixel images may be the better option for you, reducing the image file size to about half that of a 300 x 300 pixel image. The BBC (a useful technical yardstick I’ve always found) embed 300 x 300 images in their podcasts.
If your current software doesn’t allow you to embed or add images to your MP3 files directly, then standalone tag editing software should offer you this functionality. Some useful examples of such are:
Posted on 18 June 2008
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I’ve been looling into metadata a bit recently.
The phrase “album art” isn’t strictly speaking correct when referring to single track mp3 files.
iTunes stores artwork in the music file and as such is actually track artwork, whereas windows media player stores the artwork for the album in it’s own library database, and as a separate file in the album directory – so that can be called album artwork.
If you’re only interested in adding album artwork, then utilities like album art aggregator are very useful. It uses the artist and album data to find artwork on amazon.com.
Thanks for this post, Richard.
I’m a little bit in the dark about embedded artwork. Does the artwork itself actually get embedded, or is it purely a link to the artwork file? So, wherever the mp3 goes, the artwork must also go, by necessity.
If it is just a link to the artwork, why not simply use the old “folder.jpg” deal? If the image itself is embedded in the ID3 tag, can you then dispose of the original image?
…if you get what I mean…
@Rory: The artwork is actually embedded within the MP3 track, so once it’s embedded you no longer need the original image. Hope this answers your question.
hi,
i have an old imac i just use as a jukebox, and i would like to copy my mp3 files to it, only when they have artwork added.
is there a way to do so?
regards
luk
@Luk: I’m not immediately aware of any software that will do what you want, but it may be worth trawling through the web to see. Alternatively, depending on your technical prowess, you could write a script to copy files only if the source MP3 contains an embedded image ID3 tag.
Thanks for this post. Are you aware of any software which can consolidate iTunes, WMP, folder.jpg and embedded artwork? I have lots of music and the artwork is all over the place so it would be great if there was a utility which would show what artwork from different sources I have on my system for each album and then let me select which to keep (the iTunes artwork is better for this album, the WMP artwork is better for this one) and consolidate them down into ID3 tags.
@Danny: That sounds to be a very unique application that would probably require custom software. I certainly don’t know of anything that comes even remotely close to what you’re looking for. I assume that you’ve trawled through the search engines?
I use MP3Tag to edit my ID3 tags, the latest version of which allows you to save (export) embedded album art, which may help you, although it would be somewhat tedious.
Very handy article thanks. I use iTunes for my mp3 library and download and add all the artwork myself. I set the size to 300×300.
Tag&Rename is another great program for sorting out art work and tagging mp3’s.
I’ve been spending ages getting all my music into itunes with all the album art and it looks great. I want to know if iTunes “embeds” the image to the mp3 or holds it in a seperate location, any way I can find out?
I’ve been using Mp3tag to edit files. When I select ‘add cover’, and select a jpeg image that has been downloaded from the web, it sometimes comes in to ‘fill’ the window in Mp3tag, and sometimes it is only 1/4 size of the window. What is the relationship between pixel size and dpi value for artwork, and what is the ‘best’ size to use. I have tried resizing (using Pixillion Image Converter) the small sized images to a larger size ie from 150 to 300 or 500, but it dosen’t seem to make the image fit the window. I would somehow like to get it all standardized, thanks
I decided before spending days putting all my music into itunes that I would use 300×300 for my art work.
Before I would add the artwork using itunes but when I play the files on other machines sometimes the artwork didn’t show up.
I now add the artwork before using Tag&Rename. To be honest I have never used this Mp3tag but keep hearing only good things. Maybe I’ll give it a shot.
I kind of wish I used a larger size, maybe 600×600. The art looks fine on the ipod or other portable device in 300×300, but full screen on the PC it ain’t so pretty!
@hannndy45: What version of Mp3tag are you using? I’m using V2.42, which has some improved cover art handling. Also, how do you import the cover art; drag-and-drop, from the clipboard or import from a file? This may affect things.
I use 300×300 artwork imported from a JPEG file directly (72 dpi resolution) and have never experienced any problems like you’re encountering.
You could also try the Mp3tag forum for advice.
@Adam: Glad to see you’re making some progress at last
What I found is that there are devices that will not display artwork larger than 200×200. For example, I spent days trying to figure out why some art would display and others not on my new DLink DSM-520 Media Player. After trial and error, I confirmed that 200×200 is the maximum size that would display on that device. I also like Mp3tag to edit tags. It works well.
is there a way to become a content writer for the site?
I’m happy to have guest posts and to credit the guest author.
If you have any articles or posts that you think may be appropriate to my blog, please let me know.
I can’t guarantee to publish everything submitted, but if it’s appropriate for the site, then I’m happy to consider it.
great site, forum, and thread…i’ve been looking all over for this info..glad to find it in an easy to use manner. Thanks.
@hannndy45
I use an old paint program (Paint shop pro 7). It loads in a flash and within a few clicks you can have your image resized.
300×300 is fine for most of today’s devices. So I simply find the image then load it up, if I have nothing better to do I’ll maybe jazz it up a bit, save it as folder.jpg in My Documents.
Then load up your tagging software and import the image. You can then save the next file over the old one for quick and easy access.
If the artwork is “embedded” in the actual MP3’s themselves then most devices will show the artwork with no problems.
If you get everything setup first time round hopefully your never need to do anything with your files again, well, that’s the way I look at it!
on my ipod touch under artist,when i select an artist the screen moves to show the album covers with album name, touch the album it then shows the tracks within the album.perfect! NOW with some artist, it goes straight to the track, no album cover. i ise media monkey to embed the artwork for albums and cover. my itouch shows the covers for all albums in cover flow but doesn’t show the album artwork in album category. i tried to reembed the art work, remains the same. any ideas why. thank you if you can reply
@ronald: I’m afraid that I’ve no direct experience with either the Apple ipod touch or media monkey.
However, is your artwork actually being embedded in the tracks, as often album artwork for a collection of album tracks is actually saved in the album folder as a separate JPEG image and not embedded separately in each album track?
Embedding album artwork in every album track is obviously a very inefficient way of doing things.
It might be worth checking if you can to see how things are being done by the software as this could explain the results that you are experiencing.
This is too confusing. I noticed that some music albums form the net come with artwork hidden and when the songs are in the mp3 player the images are displayed. How can i put this to my songs that i ripped from my CDs?
@abel: Artwork hidden in MP3 files is embedded using ID3 tags as described in the post above. If you want to do the same with tracks ripped from your own CDs, you’ll need to use a tag editor to add the artwork to the MP3 files.
Alternatively you could use different ripping software that would rip your tracks and add the artwork at the same time, like MediaMonkey for example.
Thanks a lot very helpful, I think I just got the right software.
I have a common folder on an NAS for all of my MP3s. I am teh only one that has write privileges to it, so as to avoid accidental deletions by the rest of my family. I recently went through, using iTunes, and added album art to all of my MP3s. I then went to my wife’s machine, ran iTunes finagled around a bit and was unable to see the album art as I had expected. I even deleted an album from her iTunes and then re-added the folder and still there was no album art. So, I am currently confused, as while I accept what you say, it would seem that my files are not holding the album art. In fact, right now I have selected all songs in her library (all of which are located on this read-only share for her) and told iTunes to update the album art – which it is now doing. This is suggesting to me that iTunes is storing the album art in its catalogue and not the mp3 file itself. Can you confirm or explain what I am witnessing?
I’m afraid I’m a Windows man and use Windows Media Player to store and rip all of my music, so have no direct experience of iTunes.
However, if iTunes is anything like Windows Media Player, then the album artwork is not stored in any of the tracks themselves, but rather in a separate image file within the album’s folder/directory.
Can anyone help me on inserting album art using ID3 form.
If somebody like to help me please send a message to +94712950269 or reply by leaving a comment to this!
I would be gratefull if you’d help me!
Have you tried downloading and using a tag editor like Mp3tag? Mp3tag also has a good support forum that you may find useful.
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I have added album art tags to all my music files (set at 600 x 600 pixel resolution).
I want to add back covers and sleeve notes, which I can do – but don’t know of any players that will actually SHOW anything but front cover art work.
Any suggestions?
Unfortunately, while the ID3 tags allow all sorts of artwork to be embedded in MP3s, I’m not aware of any players that display this artwork in a meaningful way.
I’ve come across this problem myself and wrote about it in another post.
Thnks Richard – I guess that will save me a lot of time and effort, as I have 8600 mp3 files I was going to add additional images to!! Still, I will continue to scan the back covers and notes – I am sure a player will appear with viewing capabilities one day.
Don’t know if anyone has checked out “AlbumArtExchange.com”. Its a site for sharing high resolution album images (600 x 600 pixels). There are thousands of albums already on the site – and its free to download these images. I am currently uploading my images to share with the site.
Chris
The albumartexchange.com website is an excellent resource that I’m sure a lot of people will find really useful.
Here’s hoping that the next generation of MP3 players will have a more sophisticated approach to handling album art.
Hiya,
Very informative article. Especially the max supported size for embedded images was hard to find on the net.
Regards,
Gerard.
Your article is extremely helpful. However, you do not mention what setting to use for dpi (unless I missed it). I’m scanning images from CDs and resizing them using Photoshop. My 300 x 300 pixel photos are about 150 kb. You mentioned a 62 kb size. What dpi should I be using? What jpg quality should I select when saving the files?
I use 72 dpi resolution, which seems to be a fairly standard resolution for web/computer based images.
Regarding the JPEG quality, that’s probably a bit more subjective as lower quality will lead to smaller file sizes, but will obviously lead to poorer images, which can be in the eye of the beholder. Maybe a bit of experimentation is required; trying a few different settings to find a quality level that you find acceptable without too many visual artefacts.
If you’re a unix console user, this recipe may be a helpful starting point:
mp3info2 -F “APIC < 300×300.jpg" tgt.mp3
Hi
Im trying to embed the album art in the mp3 tag file using VB code but cant find the instructions to do it. Could anyone help me in this respect?
Try having a look at http://www.id3.org/Developer_Information and
http://www.id3.org/Implementations
Richard-
Thanks for a very informative thread.
My question is this: “If you embed album art in a single mp3, will that be sufficient to display the cover for the entire album, or would I need to embed that art in each track on an album? Would it need to be the first track on the album? Last?
With +\- 9000 mp3 files, it would save so much time and disc space if I could simply embed once per album.
Thanks!
Hi, a very good question, but unfortunately the answer isn’t simple as it really depends how your MP3 player has implemented the ID3 specification.
My post on Alternative ID3 Tags for Adding Artwork to MP3 Files should explain things for you however.
I would certainly counsel against putting artwork in every track as this would, as you say, take up a huge amount of unnecessary space.
I hate MP3.
A few years ago, I added cover art to ALL my mp3 files using iTunes. Now after I installed Win7 with WMP, I no longer use iTunes. Unfortunetely, WMP cannot read the cover art from all mp3 files – only som of them.
If I add album art to an album in WMP, it refuses to add the cover to all files in the album. Nomatter how I do it. Likewise, Windows Explorer can read the album art for the album, but not all files in the album.
What is wrong with people making software for playing mp3 files? I mean, this is not getting a rocket to the moon or something. How hard can it be?
So, all I have to do is once AGAIN to add the abum art to each file using 3. part software? This is not only lame – it is plain stupid.
I do indeed sympathise with your plight having experienced how different media players handle track artwork first hand!
Hi Richard
I followed your guide and installed the Mp3Tag software. It works outstanding! I can change everything (even remove hidden iTunes tags) and add Album Art to EVERY file. Great!
Now I only need to edit another 638 albums – or delete 90% of them which I never hear anyway
Thanks for your guide.
You’re welcome. I’m glad it was of some help.
I’ve put art on my Mp3’s through I tunes. The art has also shown on another itunes on another PC. The art has also shown up on Windows Media Player on various other computers. Does this suggest that the art IS embedded in the MP3’s from Itunes (rather than put in a seperate folder?). I realise that you haven’t used itunes but I would have thought that this is the case given that the art is shown on various computers.
Opinion?
Like you say, I’m not familiar with iTunes, but it does seem to suggest that the artwork has been embedded in the files, although it’s always possible that the artwork could be saved in the album folder with the tracks associated to the particular album.
You could always use a free tool like mp3tag, which will show you all the additional data actually embedded in the tracks themselves. That way you’ll be certain and be able to see what’s actually happening for yourself.
My favorite place to search for high quality album artwork is AlbumArtExchange.com. IMO, the selection of images there is miles above the other sites.