Related to any discussion of standardizing artwork format, size, etc:
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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.
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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.
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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…).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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. 
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I think you misunderstand. Sometimes the artwork I am adding are for rare, hard to find Releases. Having “something” is better than nothing. But it has to be a something that matches the actual release.
I like odd music, and often it is music where people have probably never heard of MusicBrainz or tagging. Sometimes the only copy I have are some rough MP3 files from a friend \ dodgy source. This music is still important to be documented and I will share the best quality artwork I can find.
The bootleg world is often just as important as the official releases as it keeps a picture of the unofficial side of an artist.
Like @mmirG points out, usually the music is from the previous century and very hard to find, impossible to purchase. Having “something” as a start point at least allows those of us tagging to put something into place. But the moment I find that release in a real market and get my hands on a physical copy I will scan and upload it to share.
The comical thing is that I am mad enough to have actually gone to Ebay to buy a release JUST so I can scan the cover and upload it. But then I do realise this is not “normal” behaviour 
Actually - this is one of the areas I love about MB. I have found new bands and music purely due to editing some Rabbit Hole of connections due to something on one of my favourite bands.
There is always going to be a scale of artwork. @EvilGnome6’s list is a pinnacle of perfection we all strive for, but underneath that there are steps that should and should not be allowed to represent a Release.
It is why I mentioned fanart.tv - if you want a pretty picture, go there. If you want a true representation of actual historical cover then stick to MusicBrainz. 
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Are you saying 600 dpi doesn’t strike a fine balance or just that 600 dpi doesn’t exceed the resolution of solid colors? Would you advocate for a different resolution or format for the ideal scan?
This is a good point. I think if we can get somewhat of a consensus on the ideal, then we can identify a hierarchy of steps that approach that ideal.
I’d be interested to get the png gang to chime in. I tested saving a 1200 dpi scan as an 85% jpg vs. a png. Even when zoomed in to the point of pixellation, I couldn’t discern a difference. The png was five times the file size. 
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I use a KODI media centre to playback my music. When I have the screen turned on it is a 50" 1920x1080 TV screen. (Mainly for movies). I can see the logic of the PNG Crew as already my TV is “old” now we are in a 4K world. My own personal scans are 85%JPG \ 600dpi and already bigger than my screen can show. So I agree with you @EvilGnome6 - there is more than enough quality at that level.
Does a cover \ booklet need to be a 4K and above? Probably not as I doubt it was printed at that quality. At that level you are just trying to peer into the weave of the paper. Personally I find it a huge pain when Picard hits one of these releases as I always download “all artwork” and picard bogs down trying to get 22MB images and it takes forever to download as I only have 200Mbps to play with.
But I understand their need of Extreme Quality and they should be allow to upload whatever they see fit, even though the rest of us see it as madness. We can always reduce an image for our own need, but you can never put back the quality that was lost. (Just look at what Discogs has lost with their old 600pixels max limits of the past). In the future we will laugh at the tiny 22MB images.
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It doesn’t exceed the resolution of solid colors. But we will have to consider the viewing distance. 600dpi captures the print screen nicely – but you are not supposed to see that at regular viewing distance. So I think text and other solid colors will be captured well enough.
There’s only so much you can get out of a printed original of the size of a CD booklet.
I usually prepare descreened, touched up, cropped and scaled (1080x1080 pixels) versions of the front cover for screen use. That’s not small. There’s hardly any detail lost.
Yesterday I even scanned a 7" cover that was so blurry, 1080x1080 was still plenty:
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