iTunes enables you to associate art with music in your Library. When you purchase music from the iTunes Music Store, the album cover is associated with each song automatically. You can add your own art to your music, and you can change the art currently associated with music. NOTE One of the best reasons to associate artwork with your music is so you can print jewel case insert covers for CDs you create. You'll learn how to do this later in this chapter. Viewing Album ArtworkTo view the artwork associated with music, click the Show/Hide Artwork button; select Edit, Show/Hide Artwork; or press -G. The Artwork pane will appear underneath the Source pane and the art associated with the music will be displayed. There are two options for the art you display. You can choose to display the art associated with the song currently playing, in which case Now Playing appears at the top of the Artwork pane, or you can choose to view the artwork associated with the song currently selected, in which case Selected Song appears at the top of the pane. To change which option is used, click the text that appears at the top of the pane and the other option will become active (see Figure 18.25). Figure 18.25. Because Now Playing appears at the top of the Song Artwork pane, art associated with the song currently playing appears.TIP If you double-click the art shown in the Artwork pane, a separate window will appear that shows a larger version of the art. Unfortunately, you can't do anything with it except see the larger version. And, the separate window displays only the art you were viewing when you opened it. Associating Art with MusicIf a song doesn't have album art associated with it (for example, you imported it), you can add the art yourself. Or, you might want to add the artist's picture or some other meaningful graphic to the song. You can add one or more pieces of art to songs by using the following steps:
When more than one image is associated with a song, previous and next arrows will appear at the top of the Artwork pane. Use these arrows to choose which image (the default) is displayed. (Unfortunately, iTunes doesn't rotate the images automatically.) TIP You can use the artwork in your iTunes Library as your screensaver. On the Screen Saver pane, select the iTunes Artwork module. This module presents a tiled view of art associated with your music; individual tiles rotate out to display additional art. |