It’s what I would propose to add as an option for the inside of a gatefold. Here’s an example of what I call “Inner”:
This is what I call “Outer”:
Sorry - missed the “propose” bit. I hadn’t read the rest of the replies when I got one of them notification things to confuse thing.
Yes, I like your ideas of “inner” and “Outer”, but it will also mean every front and back become “outer, front” and “outer, back”.
I can see the confusions with language already as the panel on the left on the lower image is “inside” when the package is closed. And how will you name these when they are scanned at three individual images? I call it outer left, outer middle, outer right currently.
I don’t see the need for adding “Outer” to the front and back scans. Those are well understood concepts.
Other than “Front” and “Back/Spine”, I wouldn’t scan or upload any of those other panels as individual images. Having these two images contains all the information of the Digipak/Gatefold structure and content. “Front” should be extracted as that is what most people need isolated for tagging. “Back/Spine” is useful to extract because that’s the primary reference for titles, barcodes, etc.
Have you seen some of the editors out there? There are those who like to tick “booklet” on the fronts as they argue is it the first page of a book in a jewel case. 
Maybe you won’t upload single pages, but I do not always have the time and ability to reconnect the separate panels. And I know other editors are the same. There will be people who specifically want the cut up panels to make it easier to display for their own needs. There are also times when artwork is coming from a source like Discogs where there is no spine available to recreate a full outer.
Also think of a hardback book. These can’t easily be stitched together.
Your suggestion is the “ideal”, but there are a lot of people who drop outside of that who will need to be catered for. Anything that is suggested needs to cover multiple areas.
My opinion is that the stitched panels should be consider the ideal. People who want to cut them up for their own needs can easily do so. The reverse is not always possible, especially when the images are tightly cropped. Having the images cut up also makes it more difficult to see the structure of the release.
Again, cut up panels are better than none, but we’re talking about establishing an ideal, not a set of requirements for contributing scans.
Related to any discussion of standardizing artwork format, size, etc:
1 Like
I think it’s very much preferable to not have cover art than a falsified one.
If one really just want to get any cover art, faithful or not to their edition, they just can take any other cover art from the release group.
Especially now that download releases exist, there will always be an easily created release with square cover art.
1 Like
I don’t think there is a practical way to prevent people from uploading a falsified cover. Having a documented guideline for what is ideal will help when editors remove a falsified cover or downvote having a falsified cover added.
Me too.
However incorrectly cropped coverart from a Release that is Noted as “incorrectly cropped” is accurate partial coverart.
There are still plenty of old physical releases with no digital version - the coverart of these is too often not available - if the best discoverable is a mouldy torn half of an LP cover then that still seems valuable to ground a Release.
1 Like
Even if the physical aspect is in bad condition, it’s perfect.
What’s wrong is when the image does not match the edition or when it is altered digitally edited (cropped…).
1 Like
In essence, it would be helpful to have it clearly stated that accuracy of the artwork should take precedence over aesthetics (although I had one editor argue that if something “looks” better, it is more accurate 
). An original scan of a specific release should be preferred over a digitally sourced copy of a similar-looking release.
3 Likes
I have added a ticket to set ‘CAA Release Group’ as the default art source in Picard on installation:
I think this is the cause of a lot of the CA trouble, specifically people putting square digital covers everywhere.
I also think the basic installation settings should cater to the most basic level of users, and then advanced users can dig into the settings - you can’t expect it to be the other way round. The downside is that all the forum users are advanced users so I wouldn’t be surprised if people don’t like the proposal as it doesn’t cater to them (yes, I’m talking about you, I know that you prefer individual release images). Unfortunately basic users are the problem group here.
5 Likes
Sometimes a moudly old copy is the only choice. I have uploaded ancient 200x200 images if this is the only thing I could locate that matched the dubiously acquired set of MP3 files I had in my possession. Accuracy comes first, a scan is best, but not always possible.
If some needs a pretty image for tagging they need to go to Fanart.tv or use “The Album Art Downloader”. They should always be voted down if they are trying to upload a pretty picture instead of an accurate one.
@aerozol - nice idea. Totally agree.
1 Like
I think jesus099 and I will both agree that “a digitally sourced copy of a similar-looking release” is not to be used for a Release’s coverart.
Similar looking artwork isn’t good enough - the coverart needs to be from the specific Release.
Where @jesus2099 and I may disagree currently is whether a Noted incorrectly cropped image is better or worse than no image of ther coverart in the database.
An incorrectly cropped image should be replaced&deleted ASAP IMO.
But for as long as it is Noted as “incorrectly cropped” and is the only available image version of a coverart it seems no more misleading than a scan with wrong colour balance, an image of a torn/stained cover or an image showing only a detail of an artwork. And all these can be valuable images if they help put boundaries around a Release when no better images are available.
A question for jesus2099: what is it about aspect ratio that makes it essential to be correct before an image can be included in the db?
I think we agree that images with colour-balance-problems, images that include soiling/marking/sun-fading/torn-off-portions of physical releases can improve the database if they are the best available image.
So what is it about aspect ratio?
2 Likes
That makes some people’s OCD twitch who know a Digipak is a different shape to a CD Booklet. I’ve seen odd debates on it before.
Trouble is there is a lot of square artwork uploaded without comments and it is clear this is just coming from a Google search. When some is being that slack, they then fail to spot that the album title is a different font or position, or a change of colour of the text. I was fixing (removing) a whole batch of these from a single editor a few months back.
The problem is, once the wrong artwork is attached, it is then harder for the next editor to know how much care has gone into adding that single image.
2 Likes
Update (sorry):
Well it seems I got the aspect ratio concept wrong. I thought it meant aspect while it actually means just the shape: how much height and width measure.
Original post:
Aspect ratio issue means that an image was shrunk (not cropped), only horizontally or vertically, to change its shape.
I have seen it recently and this is just wrong (rectangular images shrunk/squeezed into square).
This is aspect ratio issue, and I think a correct aspect ratio is always 1:1 (no deformation, a rectangle stays rectangular, a square stays square).
Now about cover that are cropped and marked as such.
Well, I think, only if there are no other editions with correct cover art and if you really cannot find anything else for any editions. 
3 Likes
Thanks for informing me around cropping vs squeezed.
Yes can see that wrongly cropped images are very far from good. And I agree such a misleading, inaccurate image should only be used if nothing better can be found.
Here is an instance where I’ve looked for years and have not yet found a decent image - in this sort of situation a distorted/cropped but readable image would be very useful to allow track titles to be ascertained reliably.
4 Likes
If you don’t have access to the actual release, why add it? Let someone else do it.
We have an artwork type for unmodified/raw images, but I guess a type for touched up or cropped images would be just as useful.
MusicBrainz IS often used for tagging. It provides all the metadata. Why not suitable artwork as well? Fanart may not be around forever.
It doesn’t. Solid colours are printed at much higher resolution, so text will be sharper in a higher res scan.
600 dpi will be enough to capture most rasterized images without moire. They will hardly benefit from higher resolution scans.
2 Likes
Are you suggesting that only in-hand Releases should be added to MB?
That would need to be discussed very widely.
Some of these Releases are already 24 years old - they’re becoming very uncommon. They aren’t listed in libraries, they very rarely turn up on eBay. If they’re not added now then maybe they’ll never be added. By adding images of coverart, the specific Release gets confined to having that coverart. If different coverart is found then it is known to be a different Release.
5 Likes