iTunes 10.4 makes album art "doubled."

I'm running OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard, but I'm having the same problem with iTunes 10.4, and the problem wasn't resolved with the 10.4.1 update to iTunes (maybe on a future update hopefully!).

I agree with your analysis: If you select an entire album and drag the art to the artwork viewer window in the bottom left, then the "doubling" bug doesn't occur. It also seems ok if you do one song at a time, either using drag'n'drop OR even if you use the "Add" button and Finder browse to the artwork (or Get Info and drag to the artwork window under Artwork tab). The latter method involving Finder browsing to the image works fine with one song at a time, but the same method when selecting 2 or more songs (or the entire album) creates the doubling bug.

Bottom line: One song at a time works fine with any method of adding artwork. But when adding art to 2 or more songs, you can only use the drag'n'drop to the bottom left Artwork viewer method to avoid the bug (Get Info and then drag'n'drop under Artwork tab does NOT avoid the bug).

I use many Doug's Scripts with iTunes, including one called Export Artwork that allows me to export from the selected iTunes song. This allowed me to further analyze the doubling bug. Since the bug leaves you with 2 images rather than one, you can highlight which of the 2 is currently "active" (ie. which one shows up in the artwork browser. In the Get Info view, you select one or the other by which one has the blue line around it), Thus I was able to highlight image one, then run the Export script; then I highlighted image 2 and exported it. Turns out that the 2nd image (one on the right in Get Info mode) is identical to the artwork I meant to add (jpg file, same size as the original). But the one on the left was created automatically by iTunes, and it's a PNG file whose file size is 10 times larger than my original jpg. This is the crux of the bug. iTunes is adding the jpg I selected, but also creating a duplicate in PNG format that is 10 times larger. I had an album whose total size jumped from like 75mb to 90 mb, because the PNG that iTunes creates was like 1.2mb (times 12 songs on the album, plus the much smaller jpg times 12 songs). This can cause REALLY large jumps in the space taken up compared to the songs without art !!!

Sure hope Apple fixes this. I would go back to iTunes 10.3.x if it weren't such a hassle and potential risk of either corrupting my library or creating problems down the road if I want to eventually try 10.4 again, or just being a general PITA (I don't have time machine, so can't easily revert). I've emailed Apple several times about this, and when I saw that the 10.4.1 update included some "Artwork-related fixes" I was SURE that this would be resolved....but of course not.

I've also noticed that you can no longer delete an entire album by selecting the Album in the far right scroll list and hitting Delete (when I hit Delete, it just jumps me down to the very end of the Album list). Instead, you have to select all of the songs contained in the album and Delete them.

I have a similar problem about album artwork. I select a bunch of songs which do not have artwork, drag an image to the bottom left window. So far it's OK and there's no duplicate image in "Get Info - Artwork." The problem is this: when I check the files inside iTunes' library in Finder, I found out each song is duplicated, creating another version with artwork added. Now, why do I need the original file if I were to add artwork to it?

Is there a way to avoid this behavior? Even if I want to delete them manually in iTunes, they do not show up in "Display Duplicates." Adding artwork to an album doubles the size. It's even worse than the above situation!

I am experiencing the wonderful effects of this bug as well. I will occasionally scan my own art for singles that are not in the iTunes database. I go to great pains to change the PNG files to size-reduced JPG files, and then, of course, when I add them to multiple songs using the GET INFO and ADD method, there I have my beautiful double the space effect of PNG plus JPG files.

I hope that this is fixed soon. Does anyone have an open ticket on the issue? And, is there a way to set JPG as your preferred image file format across the board in OSX Lion? I don't need supersized PNG files for anything.

I was thinking that part of the problem here might be something to do with how OSX Lion opens programs to where you last had them opened (unless you defeat this behavior by one of several available workarounds). That "feature" is a true annoyance that needs a simple on and off switch built into the OS.