I agree completely. The point of MB’s cover art inclusion is to accurately represent the release. Allowing inaccurate or irrelevant images isn’t “progress” – it’s missing the point. MB releases can be linked to a number of fanart sites via relationships. That’s more than enough.
8 Likes
What if the images are relevant and exact representations of their associated releases… just really well scanned and free of dust, scratches and wrinkles?
(Helps identify editions).
6 Likes
You will not like the answer to your question… 
Music is the only thing you will not find at MB 
You’ll find plenty of people who agree with you and are interested in swapping tips. (There are also lots of people who just want an image for tagging - lets please not bring that debate up and keep that for another thread).
MB’s brilliance is in the little details. You’ll find many editors supplying good quality scans of every part of a release.
I’m one of those artwork addicts. I am archive scanning everything I own for my own use, and in the process uploading this to MB to act as a backup and sharing the resource I have in my hands. Artwork scanning can get addictive. 
5 Likes
Could you please put any specific layout suggestions or feedback into the redesign thread? (Just covering artist pages at the moment):
We already have a lot of people here who are focused on excellent scans and cover art 
You are welcome to join us! And start threads pulling it all together! @Freso, what do you think about a new cover art section?
As you can tell the friction that exists between cover art uploaders is MBs need for release-specific cover art, vs people who want to edit or ‘fix’ artwork (beyond removing dust or scratches - cropping, removing logos, and so on, is not allowed). For instance, if you want to upload a digital cover you have to add the digital release to MB.
But this isn’t a deal breaker for all cover art lovers, I see it as a big positive. Join us 
3 Likes
I don’t know what you’re asking. To whom was this directed?
Please can you tell me where I can read this?
Those images are very welcome! That type of editing does not constitute the type of “fanart” that is disallowed by the guidelines.
5 Likes
@highstrung : So you say that “descreen scans to achieve a superior surface look to artwork” and/or “our cleaned up art” and/or “free of dust, scratches and wrinkles” belongs not to
Fan Art
Any fan-made or edited artwork is not to be uploaded to any release, with the exception of bootleg releases …
This includes any form of alteration to the positioning of graphical elements within the image (such as advisory, hype or point of sale stickers).
Yes, as I interpret the guideline, processing for the purpose of more accurately representing the physical release is fine. I think that’s consistent with common practice and with previous forum discussions.
6 Likes
‘Superior surface look’ and a few other points are a bit vague on what exactly they are changing, but generally speaking they sound all good.
For instance removing pixelation introduced by a scanning process = yes. Removing pixelation that’s present on the printed release = better to link it via fanart.tv
Edit: maybe pixelation wasn’t the best example to use, there’s a related unresolved (afaik?) question re if we can minimize/edit print dots, if anyone wants to talk about that maybe start a new thread.
4 Likes
highstrung and aerozol get what I mean. We’re committed to producing really good scans of album art without changing the positioning of graphics for that particular release (exactly what the fan art rules say). If the cover scans with moire we try to flatten this moire because the scanning was too precise. Would be like using a microscope to take a picture.
I’ll produce an example wiki which matches the rules in due time and write a new thread proposing exactly the purpose of a new sub-forum. aerzol already has a redesign thread so I am contributing to that for my second “cover art more predominantly displayed” point.
Thanks aerozol.
3 Likes
A bit late to reply (sorry), but wanted to take a look at some stuff first, and…
Most months see 2–3 topics in MusicBrainz with the cover-art tag. I’m not sure that’s quite enough to warrant a new (sub)category for it or that that would provide any benefit which the tag does not already provide.
What would you all want from a separate category that a tag cannot provide? (Or that you think a tag doesn’t provide.)
4 Likes
I think it’s a chicken and egg situation, where if we make a cover art forum section more prominent it might encourage people to join in who are just interested in cover art. Tags are a bit buried and more of a advanced browsing function.
I’m thinking that cover art is a good avenue into MB for a new subset of contributors who aren’t necessarily into the other ‘data’.
That said, there’s no guarantee there would end up being more discussion. I don’t think it’s a must-have. But a potential opportunity.
Hehe, thank you for responding @Freso. Just an observation when you say 2-3 topics pop up vs. the “plenty of discussions” leading to “we all have our own methods and tips often get shared” by @IvanDobsky.
So where are all of these “plenty of discussions”? 
In any case, Freso, I sense a feeling of demand to cater to the acceleration of the new cover ticker moving on the front page.
Cover art is integral to identifying differences between editions; discussions to produce those better scans are likewise integral to the Cover Art Archive’s foundation.
Don’t you agree?
We need a consolidated home to feverishly produce the most ideal scans of editions and to work and research on how to best achieve the aim.
There are artwork addicts, or rather completionists, like me and IvanDobsky and who aerozol identifies as “people to join in who are just interested in cover art”; if our demographic had a separate (sub)category we would see our consolidated place of research leading to concerted and coordinated work.
Wow, what an explosion in beautiful and clearly scanned album art for the Cover Art Archive this would be!
https://wiki.musicbrainz.org/Guides/Scanning_Cover_Art
I am maybe 8% done.
Later I will draft up:
- Proposed Cover Art Rules
- Proposed Cover Art Standards
And see what IvanDobsky and @highstrung think.
In any case a separate forum board will aide in the growth of scanned cover art as a reference medium.
2 Likes
Depends on your definition of “Plenty”. @Freso is correct, that there are not DAILY discussions. Barely even monthly. So we can tag it with cover-art and let the conversations be found. Don’t need a separate section. Those tags are pretty useful for linking discussions.
The key is have more discussions, tag it more, and the more cover-art conversations appear on the front page, the more people join in. And the more people join in, the bigger the discussions. And then that would logically show at a later time if a need was there for a section.
You will also find that I am not here “only for the cover art”. 
I am here for the data. I can be far more interested in researching that recording engineer and where else they turned up. I also will have a very different viewpoint on what is good artwork. I don’t believe in locking out the amateur. I have a combo of an old Brother MFP, NAPS2 and Paint.net. While you do a high-end description, I’ll kick in with the basics. I already can spend over an hour on scanning\editing a CD - when I’d rather spend that time on the database.
@aerozol - I also agree with you. Too often people wade in and slap a prettified image up for tagging. Would be good to have a thread to point them at that says why this is an evil thing to do and they need to understand a difference between a pretty image and a real image of a product. Warts and all.
2 Likes
Thank you! Little too basic so I would like to continue mine.
I’ve not looked at fanart.tv, but albumartexchange.com does seem to encourage high quality scans. What is the problem with them that MB would solve?
1 Like