Do you have a script for checking the size of the cover art and replacing it if it’s too small or does not exist?
The files are tagged. The tag is inside the music file. And a format convertor also reads those tags and copies the important ones across to the MP3s.
Picard does not need to “keep a list” as that is why the MBIDs are added to the file. The MBIDs being present in your files means Picard does not have to repeat a search to update the tags.
No, as I focus on MusicBrainz I get the best they have automatically. You’ll find it rare to have two sizes sitting on a Release. Also I have usually been looking at the Releases and updating artwork before tagging. Meaning I have either just uploaded my own scans, or sourced artwork from elsewhere at best quality.
If you are just after “big”, then use the Release Group artwork. That is often pointing to the larger image. I have this unticked due to my above comment about spending too much time in the database 
What you may want to do is also look at some of the other art sources like fanart.tv and TheAudioDB. They will have more “polished” artwork and less fuss about being exact. They just go for big\pretty instead of accurate. (I have also pointed out Album Art Downloader before)
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finally getting to focus on this… where does this:
go?
It goes in here:
Options / Scripting
Click on “Add New Tagger Script” and give it a name.
Then make sure you tick it when you want it to work.
My scripts are a bit chaotic and I toggle them on and off as I need them. I prefer short little snippets instead of those huge renaming things that exist.
-=- What I do - not saying it is best practice, but works for me…
My artwork could be better, but it almost does what I need. Also note, I download ALL artwork. For this release I get this:
- The first “front” is renamed to “cover.jpg”. Common to most media players this is the image that gets displayed. Usually there is only one front image, but sometimes you also get cases and extra pack shots. So that case shot becomes “front.jpg”
- The booklet appears as booklet.jpg, booklet (1).jpg, booklet (2).jpg etc
- The CD images also same - first is medium.jpg followed by medium (1).jpg etc.
- Same with the matrixes.
- Stickers, trays, etc all get cleanly named.
- Notice how things like “back,spine” use just that first word “back.jpg”
I then have some manual clean up. As this is a 2CD edition I have to clean up the two folders so the correct CD image is in there.
If I was going to do all my tagging again I would likely tweak that script so all the booklet pages are numbered. The problem here is booklet.jpg is sitting last and therefore opens last in file order. As I am almost at the end of my CD tagging mission it is a bit late to change. So I am likely to use a file renaming script to fix that in bulk another time.
Also note I am a person who only does two or three albums at a time and manually checks everything. But then I am planning to only do this once.
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I turned on Options->Cover Art->Save cover images as seperate files.
and a number of artwork files were saved. what does your script do differently/add?
Yes, I think I want just the release and not the release group…
I “think” the main thing it does is change that first “front” image into “cover.jpg” so my media players can find it. And numbers the booklet… Let me go test for you with script off… updating this post shortly… please do not adjust your set…
And back after the break… Errr… okay… so I have no idea what that script is doing. It has been there for five years. Now I turn it off. Restart Picard. Tag the same album… and all is exactly the same. Maybe it was bypassing something an old Picard version did… Am confused 
see next post for solution… 
The main page you want to mess with for choosing art types is here:
Choose your arts. I always download everything and then manually delete. Sometimes I want those “unknowns” or the “other” images may be parts of a boxset that I’ll then manually rename.
This is the bit making sure I get a cover.jpg. So if you want “folder.jpg” just type “folder” in the “Use the following file name” box
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Okay… update as to what the script does. See here: Picard Artwork Choices - how does it choose a cover? - #8 by IvanDobsky (warning… loonatic hyper thread… 
Just the two posts #8,#9 are relevant)
Basically… a release like this: Release “Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London... Plus” by Various Artists - Cover Art - MusicBrainz has got the first part of the booklet tagged as “front, booklet”. That made a mess when I downloaded as it was named “Front.jpg” and I wanted it to be “Booklet.jpg”
So script fixes the times when a booklet is also tagged as Front.
It has a narrow use case of making sure a booklet is really named as a booklet with all of its parts.
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Thanks for checking this so quickly…
Is the order of downloading the booklet parts guaranteed to be the order they are stored in?
Is it possible to get the comments? Remember this:
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Bored today with quiet phones. Glad to help as it reminds me what that script does. 
Yes. Always the case of the order you see on screen is what you get with the files. booklet, booklet (1), booklet (2) etc. The bonus of that script is making sure nothing gets missed if it has multiple types. “back” “front” etc are ignored. Without the script you’d have booklet pages splitting off as separate fronts, backs, etc. leading to confusion and lost pages
This ordering can be really handy on a box set. You know those where you have 20CDs in a box each in a slip case. With those you’ll have all the CDs in order. All the fronts, backs, liners or whatever will be in the same order as you see on screen.
And sorry, nothing can get the comments yet. See below…
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I’ll dump this here, in case anyone finds it useful in the future.
I use this little snippet
$if($gte(%totaldiscs%,2),../Artwork/,Artwork/)$if(%coverart_types%,$join(%coverart_types%, + ),front)$if(%coverart_comment%, \(%coverart_comment%\),)
Here:
Which puts cover art into directories like this, as I sort multi-disc releases into subdirs with their disc subtitles. If you don’t, just remove the first if statement.
/Single disc album/
Artwork/file.jpg
01. Track.flac
/Multi disc album/
Artowork/file.jpg
Disc 1/01-01. Track.flac
Disc 2/02-01. Track.flac
It will name the files like this, with a disambiguating comment text in brackets, if it as been added it to MB’s database.
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Thanks for this! Interesting and helpful.
I have albums with multiple discs and havent settled on how i want to handle them. Please can you give us a more detailed example? or maybe use this Bruce Springsteen release as an example… 3 CDs, each in their own CD jewel case. slight different covers (with the cd number on it) and different backs…
Since a submitted image can only belong to a release, rather than belong to a medium, that is to say there is no option to set an image as CD 2’s front image, you will probably have to rely on (or contribute!) image comments to disambiguate the front.jpg from CD 1 from the front.jpg from CD 2, or medium.jpg Side A from medium.jpg Side B etc.
If you’re asking how you might sort, say, CD 1 images from CD 2 images when you retrieve them, then I really don’t know haha. I don’t think you would ever be able to use any user-submitted comments for anything you might rely on in a script.
Personally, I just make do with having a boxset front image as the cover for all of its constituent CDs/albums.
By the way, this is what I’ve got, slotted into my renaming script, to create directories for discs of multi-disc albums
$if($gte(%totaldiscs%,2),$pad(%discnumber%,2,0). $if(%discsubtitle%,%discsubtitle%,%album%))/
If it’s a single-disc release it will be ignored, if there are two or more discs it will create either
02. Whatever the disc subtitle is named/
And if there is no disc subtitle
02. Whatever the album is called/
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Just to clarify, in the case of a multi disc album, there is a single folder for artwork
Neat fix, but are there any conventions for how to handle booklets?
I was working on my Adele CD and found two different approaches:
- In the US version of the CD, the uploaded artwork has the first booklet file tagged as ‘Front, Booklet’ with the result that without your script in place, the file is downloaded as cover.jpg. The first file is actually the first page of the booklet and the last page. It’s like this because it was easy to manufacture/print and thus easy to scan…
- In the UK version of the CD, the uploaded artwork varies with some booklet files being single pages and others being double pages where it makes sense - photos that go across both. The booklet files are in order, except the front of the booklet is missing! The first page of the booklet is actually the front cover. You can see the whole sequence in the pdf file. One solution would be to add the type Booklet to the Front cover image or another would be to have a duplicate copy of the file, but mark it as Booklet. This would be consistent with the last page of the booklet which has been uploaded (and in the UK version is completely black). I’m tempted to correct this release by uploading the cover image and tagging it as Booklet.
It really seems like to guidance on booklets is needed.
- First Image of a booklet should be the cover even if it is duplicate, don’t include the back
- Some number of images showing two pages of the booklet
- Last image of a booklet shows the back page of the booklet.
Thoughts?
I don’t get why there are two “fronts” on the first Adele example.
“front, booklet” is something some people like to do. It is pedantically correct. In a jewel case that image is both the front page and the booklet. I would not upload the same image twice though just for happy tagging. This is not a tagging site.
Generally I do what you see on Release “Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London... Plus” by Various Artists - Cover Art - MusicBrainz. My first booklet scan is often an open book. Other times I’ll just start with pages 2-3 and do all pairs, ending with a single image of the rear cover of the book. Usually there will be a separate matrix image, but it is not needed in that example as Matrix is readable on the Medium.
I used to do single page scans, but now more usually do double page as it allows better show-off of the artwork. If someone wants single pages, they can slice my artwork. Not as easy to do the reverse.
I don’t expect a perfect automated solution with Picard. There are some very weirdly typed images. I ran through 400+ images of a user at the weekend who had managed to get many types mixed up. Classics like “back, booklet” for the last page of a book, or trays labelled as “front, tray, spine” and backs as “track, tray, spine”. Stuff that technically sounds good in English, but confuses any automatic software. I cleaned 'em all up and showed them the guidelines. Translated the types. There is a lot of that out there. But guidelines are pretty good.
The main point is, don’t expect Picard to give you a 100% perfect result every time. Always do a quick manual check of what appears.
Sometimes you’ll get some booklets that are long fold-outs of multiple panels. I tend to rename them to "booklet inner " and “booklet outer”. Or poster booklets. Similar with slip cases and boxes. Or gatefolds. There are many terms not in the MB Coverart language. There is no generic solution.
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How do I make front,booklet be just booklet?
if($inmulti(%coverart_types%,booklet),booklet) isn’t working for me…
Just disable the script that I used to “fix” the “booklet, front” as Picard by default uses the alphabetically first item (I think)
Sorry, not a script expert.
I guess I will learn
The script goes in the file naming field and executes when you save the files. Then it works.
Also untick ‘Always use the primary image type as the file name for non-front images’ (If you don’t, then the first booklet image - the one which is of type ‘Front, Booklet’ will be named as Front.jpg. The Front type appears to be considered the primary type’
The 8 files with Booklet in the type are saved. Sorted in order on windows as:
Booklet(1)
…
Booklet(7)
Booklet
The first image is in the Booklet file which is the last… looking for some filename variables.
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