My new album artwork web site - www.albumartexchange.com
http://www.albumartexchange.com
I've posted here before about my fanatical obsession with really high quality cover art. I have artwork for every single piece of music in my ~5700-song iTunes Library, and I try to get the best quality I can. Up until now, I've been sharing work that I've done scanning and Photoshopping cover art by posting it on Amazon.com and on my own personal web site.
I've turned what used to be just a part of my personal web site into its own dedicated site. The web site meant to be a place to find artwork you're looking for, and to contribute artwork you've scanned and/or edited yourself. Unfortunately it's a very small collection, and up until recently there hasn't been anything but a few hundred of my own scans. I'd like to see how much I can grow the collection by finding other album artwork fantatics who want to share with others scans and Photoshop work they've done.
Friday night I had 484 images. By today, with just two new contributors so far, that's up to 680 images. Not every new image meets my fussy standards, but then again, there are a few of my own posted images that I've become displeased with over time and want to replace too.
The web site is still a little rough around the edges, but I wanted to get feedback and new contributions sooner, rather than try to polish the site to perfection all by myself, without feedback, and open it up much later.
Please be aware that there might be some bugs, and do let me know if you run into any of them. I consider myself a pretty good software engineer, but Java GUI work is my forte -- I'm a bit of an amateurish hack when it comes to web site design and database stuff. Since none of the pre-existing freeware code like Gallery would do exactly what I needed, what you'll see at the web site is a lot of fresh, new, hand-coded web pages and submission forms. While I think things are in pretty good functional shape at the moment, the potential for bugs that haven't been caught yet is not insignificant.
At least I didn't try to create forums from scratch.
I'm using phpBB, and I've set things up so that the log-in for the forums also works for the album art gallery, so that by logging in you can contribute artwork and edit and update any earlier submission you've made.
I've posted here before about my fanatical obsession with really high quality cover art. I have artwork for every single piece of music in my ~5700-song iTunes Library, and I try to get the best quality I can. Up until now, I've been sharing work that I've done scanning and Photoshopping cover art by posting it on Amazon.com and on my own personal web site.
I've turned what used to be just a part of my personal web site into its own dedicated site. The web site meant to be a place to find artwork you're looking for, and to contribute artwork you've scanned and/or edited yourself. Unfortunately it's a very small collection, and up until recently there hasn't been anything but a few hundred of my own scans. I'd like to see how much I can grow the collection by finding other album artwork fantatics who want to share with others scans and Photoshop work they've done.
Friday night I had 484 images. By today, with just two new contributors so far, that's up to 680 images. Not every new image meets my fussy standards, but then again, there are a few of my own posted images that I've become displeased with over time and want to replace too.
The web site is still a little rough around the edges, but I wanted to get feedback and new contributions sooner, rather than try to polish the site to perfection all by myself, without feedback, and open it up much later.
Please be aware that there might be some bugs, and do let me know if you run into any of them. I consider myself a pretty good software engineer, but Java GUI work is my forte -- I'm a bit of an amateurish hack when it comes to web site design and database stuff. Since none of the pre-existing freeware code like Gallery would do exactly what I needed, what you'll see at the web site is a lot of fresh, new, hand-coded web pages and submission forms. While I think things are in pretty good functional shape at the moment, the potential for bugs that haven't been caught yet is not insignificant.
At least I didn't try to create forums from scratch.
I'm using phpBB, and I've set things up so that the log-in for the forums also works for the album art gallery, so that by logging in you can contribute artwork and edit and update any earlier submission you've made.
Comments
Thanks Shetline! I share your sickness... much appreciated.
Have you done much scanning and Photoshopping to get better cover art? If so, any contributions you can make would be greatly appreciated.
Fantastic! I think you may find yourself running into trouble with the copyright holders, but it's great work (maybe some of the copyright holders will buy the art back from you)!
While I think there's a small risk of that, considering that you can get free album art from lots of places on the web, and often very good quality stuff automatically downloaded from iTunes even for music not purchased from iTunes, I'm guessing that the record labels tend to consider cover art as promotional material, good free advertising that the want to have spread around.
I'm also encouraging posters to include a "where to buy" link for the albums that go along with the images they upload, which I hope will further reduce any inclination on the part of the record labels or other copyright holders to give me a hard time.
Have you done much scanning and Photoshopping to get better cover art? If so, any contributions you can make would be greatly appreciated.
Actually I've not "had" to scan in anything yet, I'm waiting on you to buy all the old CDs I need.