Uploaded covers - which are mine?

Maybe I want a pony, but I won't know until I ask. Please see http://www.librarything.com/topic/72031 for a lead-in to this request and some discussion.

I've uploaded a lot of my covers, but scanning them is time-consuming, and on occasion I haven't taken the time. When I'm looking at the page for one of my books, I often end up wondering whether the rather blurry member-provided cover image is from someone else, or is the best that my scanner could do. The only way I know to find out is to go find the book, scan the cover, and compare. That's a pain.

Is there any way that I could be shown that I provided a cover, in the same way that I'm shown that I own the book, and my details for the book?

I would also like to know this. I've created a collection called "Scan Cover" for those that I haven't done yet, but I sometimes find that someone else has uploaded something with sufficient resolution and use that. It would certainly be nice to know which were mine and which weren't.

And Collectorator, I wouldn't mind a helper badge, either. ;-)

Putting my vote in! This would be a very useful "pony", if indeed it is one. Myself, I've tagged books "my own cover" when I've used a cover that I scanned and uploaded myself. But I know a lot of people haven't done that, and it would be interesting to see.

How I wish I had tagged them! But hundreds of books later. . . . :-(

Guess I should start doing it now.

Question: On your home page, under Your Zeitgeist, is the number for "Custom Covers" the total of ones you have uploaded plus the member-provided ones you have selected?

>6 myshelves: Yes. It appears to be any non-Amazon and non-blank covers. (It's the same number as Statistics/Memes | Book Covers | Member-uploaded cover, chosen by you.)

Adding my 'vote' FOR both: statistics on my own covers, and helper badges for covers.

This would be useful. For one thing, I believe that clicking "remove it" has different consequences depending on who uploaded the cover; if it's someone else's, you can always re-select it, but if it's yours it's gone.

However, as a private member, I wouldn't necessarily want others to know which covers were submitted by me.

At the same time, some people with very rare editions of very popular books who have uploaded a scanned image might like to make it easy for other interested folks to find them. And then again some might not.

I don't know if I deserve a badge for "up"loading (sideways-loading?) covers I snatched from various places on the internet - Amazon among them. Back when I had the use of a scanner - now that was real work. :-)

I'd like both too.

I think that would be neat too.

bump :-)

Less than a day isn't really an appropriate timescale for a bump on a RSI (as opposed to a serious bug), IMO.

#13
Sorry. I really didn't know that there were any rules of etiquette involved.

I was just hoping that the topic would catch the eye of someone with an LT "staff hat" who can tell us whether the request is for a pony, or is reasonable.

There is a discussion going on about Helper Badges, on which some have mentioned uploaded covers. Those favoring the badge may want to join in. I don't think the question asked here about seeing which covers are yours has been mentioned.

Going back to post # 9:

I believe that clicking "remove it" has different consequences depending on who uploaded the cover; if it's someone else's, you can always re-select it, but if it's yours it's gone.

Is that correct? If someone clicks "remove it" for a cover he or she has uploaded, is it removed from LT? No longer available for 1) those who have already selected it, or 2) to be selected in the future?

If someone has uploaded a cover, they can remove the cover if no one else has selected it. If someone has selected it, then it stays in the system.

Ah. That's one comfort.

Thanks for clarifying, infiniteletters.

Or, to be slightly more general, covers are removed when nobody's using them.

I would like to use several covers for a slide show I am doing. Is there a problem - copyright, local niceties, etc. - with doing so?

# 21 - can't answer your direct question, but you may find the resolution too low for a decent projected image.

This would be great, especially since it takes up quite a bit of time to scan + upload covers - and YES we need badges! However, the coolest thing would be if we could see all the covers we've uploaded in one place.

Re. #23: "the coolest thing would be if we could see all the covers we've uploaded in one place"

Yes, like the "uploaded image" gallery on Amazon.

 

That would be cool. But it would be very helpful to see on the page for my book whether the cover showing is one I uploaded or one I selected.

hi I'm new to lt. I have a few books with no links to covers from amazon. if I scan a cover myself is there some guidance about file size or dimensions (I've never used a scanner before but I think my fax has one)?

or can you take a photo of a cover with a digital camera? noone has mentioned that - and same questions about file size and dimensions?

thank you, lunar

For file size, you should aim to get around 600k, which was the old limit (although another post says the limit is now 1.2M). There's essentially no limit on dimensions as the pictures are reduced to squeeze them into the LT format.

There are several members who take pictures of their covers since they don't have scanners. Those photos are processed in the same way, so it's the same limit.

I use scans at 120 dpi, which averages maybe around 200k per cover for a JPEG at a reasonable quality setting (I use quality 8 "High" in Photoshop for this, which is higher than normal for Web use). This gives you around 1000 pixels of height on an octavo, which is probably plenty of detail for this use.

You can use a digital camera to take pictures of your covers, but they'll need more work - cropping, color correction, etc. - to look decent at all, especially if your lighting isn't well controlled.

thank you very much

Hmm. I generally scan covers at 150dpi but then resize to fit in a 400 x 400 box. That's normally 30-40k. I was aiming to speed up download times for graphics rich views of my booklist, and I was treating the file size limits as limits, not as targets.
I find 400 x 400 is normally readable and recognisable, and often looks better than some mysteriously blurred images that are far larger.

>26 lunarcheck:/27

I don't have a scanner - I take pictures with a really cheap digital camera set on the "lowest" quality setting so it doesn't trip the file size parameters (by the time they are reduced to the little book page photos they look fine to me). I crop and "enhance" (what ever that means - usually helps with pictures that are too dark) with the software that came with the comera on my computer and then upload.

One tip: turn OFF your camera flash and have an indirect lighting source (or you will get weird reflections off of your glossy covers). (I occasionally have to re-take a picture if my hand shakes during the photo-taking, cheap digital cameras being what they are.)

Something to remember, too, is that LT will scale covers up to 250 pixels high in some instances, so any image smaller than that runs the risk of severe pixellation.

I scan my covers at 150 dpi, which results in about 1000px high for MMPBs and 1500px for hardcovers and comic books. I use Paint Shop Pro to do all my cleanup (removing scuffing, creasing, and scratches) and then use the compression preview to save at the compression level that still leaves the reds (the color that JPG compression handles worst) looking fairly un-muddied. MMPBs I usually get in the 100-200kb range, depending on the cover design. Comic books get muddy quickly, though, and I often have to shrink the images down to get them under 600kb.

>23 girlunderglass: This would be great, especially since it takes up quite a bit of time to scan + upload covers - and YES we need badges! However, the coolest thing would be if we could see all the covers we've uploaded in one place.

YES to all of these points! Luckily I read this thread before getting to a point when I started scanning bookcovers, so I've tagged every one of them with "MyScan" -- at least I myself know how many I've scanned and uploaded and can feel good about myself :D

I wonder about this too. When I upload a cover to LibraryThing I scan at a resolution which is high enough to be useful to others as well as myself. Is there is a way for LibraryThing to:
1. Record the bit size of the uploaded file

... and to promote quality uploading of covers by:
2. developing a specific helper badge
3. recording and posting the number of cover uploads by members
4. recording the number of member uploaded cover images chosen by other members

You, me and I expect a bunch of others are interested in this topic. I have only been in LT for 2 months and am still learning the system. How do we get our ideas for improvement of the system considered by the LT editors?

bribes and/or whining seem to work well

I can't afford a bribe and the rules of the road make whining a non starter. I am just trying to find the route to the eyes that can act on the issue if it warrants action.

OK Collectorator, did you hear my chant reverberate down your way?

Jehovah's Witnesses on bicycles would be a collector's item.

Usually the bicycle riders are young LDS men. (white shirts, dark pants, and backpacks)

Door-to-door Jehovahs Witnesses tend to be a little older.

YMMV

Sorta-on-topic: Does anyone know what is considered "high quality" by LT standards? I see supposed "high quality" book covers that aren't much bigger then 100 pixels, and are very blurry. They certainly don't LOOK high quality.... Does anyone know the criteria there?

According to an older thread (post 12), it's over 142px high.

(You can link directly to the relevant message - the "Message 12" text in the bar is a link to itself.)

47>

"High quality" is purely an image-size issue. As you say there are plenty of large-but-blurry covers out there.

34>
Thanks for reviving this topic. I'm "on the record" on other threads with the same requests, and would also love to see a gallery of the covers I've uploaded.

Hummmmmmcover.helper.badges.hmmmm.

Hummmmsomething.to.say.image.is.mine.and.how.many.users.are.using.it.hmmmm

I never thought of chanting! And maybe burning a little incense would help attract TPTB to the thread. Does incense come in pizza flavor?

Hmmmmm.

Cheese. Get the cheese-scented incense. ;-)

Yummmmmmm.

You people must REALLY want the rest of us to click the "ignore button". :D

#57

Did you stop by to say something about the topic, or were you just making an anti-frivolity patrol? :-)

It would be nice to know which of the covers that you can choose from when you use change covers is the one currently being displayed in your library. This is not at all obvious sometimes.

#6 I know I'm late to this discussion, but I don't see "Custom Covers" anywhere in the Zeitgeist, nor do I see anything called "Your Zeitgeist" . . . has this changed recently, or am I missing something?

I agree that there are many changes in how the covers are handled that need to be made, but I've found that covers discussions are the only ones on which I never hear anything back from LT. Leads me to believe we are stuck with the bizarre treatment of covers by LT.

"Your Zeitgeist" is a module on your home page; perhaps you have it turned off?

http://www.librarything.com/profile/MEMBERNAME/stats/covers linked from one's Profile and then from Statistics/Memes

#61

Thanks. I hadn't realized that the stats would show me which were Amazon covers. That will be a help.

Still wish I could find out which of the "custom" covers are ones I scanned. That way, if I'm not happy with the scan, I'd know that I've already taken my best shot.

Okay, I found the custom covers in the Your Zeitgeist, but it's not a link, just a number, so not very helpful. I have been using the links within Stats/Memes, but they don't seem to accurately reflect things either . . . and it's cumbersome to get back to that page if you are trying to edit a large subset of books.

Some sort of highlighting of the currently selected cover in the lists of possible covers within the Change Cover page would be a BIG help!

"Some sort of highlighting of the currently selected cover in the lists of possible covers within the Change Cover page would be a BIG help!"

Most definitely.

>65 infiniteletters:
Agreed.

Right now I'm re-scanning and re-uploading a lot of covers, and yes, that would be a WONDERFUL help. I've come across more then a few covers where I've used the tag "my own cover", but I can't find the cover saved anywhere on my computer and am very doubtful that it actually is my cover. It confuses me and I'd love to have some sort of marker!

Fortunately for me, at the time that I joined LT, there was a lot of discussion in various threads about covers. I didn't do any cataloging while I was lurking and learning. But those threads showed me that it might be necessary in the future to have my original scans saved on my own computer and that there was no other way to tell which were my own covers unless I tagged them so.

So I've tried to be pretty consistent from the beginning with tagging of my covers - {cover-scanned, {cover-member, {cover-upload (which meant that it was an upload; though someone has combined that tag with the tag "to upload", so I've had to change my own tag to say {cover-uploaded, which change I dislike and forget half the time), {cover-2upload (now why didn't he combine THAT one instead?).

I may have forgotten some tags along the way, but all-in-all, it gives me a pretty good idea of my covers.

Wow, and I thought my "Amazon cover", "my own cover", "cover?" (meaning it has a user-uploaded cover but not the best quality), and "upload cover" was excessive! I'm glad to know I'm not the only one. :)

68> They were probably combined when anyone could just combine or separate tags with the click of a button. Now that they have to be proposed and voted on, why not propose separating the tags? That you use it in a different sense is an excellent reason.

68: {cover-upload (which meant that it was an upload; though someone has combined that tag with the tag "to upload", so I've had to change my own tag to say {cover-uploaded

Combining tags shouldn't affect your own usage of your tags. http://www.librarything.com/catalog/countrylife&tag=%7Bcover-upload should be your books tagged with "{cover-upload" -- regardless of what it has been combined with.

yeh I would like this too, because I want to get the best covers possible, however some books are scruffy and when scanning them it won´t look good. Therefore when I go through the cover view I look and think that needs scanning without realising that I provided it!
The only way is to use tags which I don´t like doing if they are public, as they won´t apply to other people. Or collections.

Yes, but if you use your own versions of tags, they won't show up on popular books and will be interesting (probably) on less-common books. I use _scan cover, _make cover (when I have to do something like mark it as an ebook or inclusion), _need cover (I don't own the book so can't scan it - need to find it online somewhere), _upgrade cover (it's got a member-uploaded cover but not a good one, I need to scan and upload it myself), _amazoncover (just so I can find those books without going through Stats/Book Covers)...stuff like that.

I also scan my covers and then clean them up in a paint program (I use Irfanview) - erasing scuffs and scratches and white bits around the edges, sharpening the scan, brightening and lightening the colors (have you noticed that the cover is darker than the thumbnail?). I've got a lot of scruffy books, and what I want on them is an 'ideal' cover, what it looked like new. I know some people want their own scratches showing - which is fine, but does require everyone who feels that way to upload their own cover, they can't use anyone elses. The cleaned-up cover, at least theoretically, looks like the book did when new, so is appropriate for anyone who has that cover...

I didn't tag when I used my own cover, though I have stored all my uploaded covers. And I would _love_ for the cover in use to be highlighted, and to be able to see my own uploaded covers (preferably at full size).

BTW - the way I created the _amazoncover tag was to go to Stats/Book Covers, choose the Amazon covers link, then poweredit the tag on every book that showed up there. Now I have to add it to new books when they get stuck with an Amazon cover, but that's not so many. I go through and fix covers when I can as part of the Add Books cleanup (there are always things to clean up, whether I use Amazon or Library of Congress!). Ones I can't fix straight off go into a Working On collection; when the cover is up to acceptable, I take them out of there and put them in Cover Done.

70 & 71> I stumbled across a tag-combination proposal that had so many votes FOR, that I didn't see the sense in raising a stink. But if it makes no difference to the way things work overall, I'm going back to the way that makes sense to me. Thank you both for helping me 'think that through'.

BTW, I found this strange. I just changed 3 of hubby's books to use that tag again, so I could search on the tag and see what happened. At this moment, in my own catalog are 18 books with the tag {cover-upload + the 3 in hubby's = 21. When I search on the tag, it tells me: "Tag used 21 times by 1 members". How does it know that both those catalogs are by '1 member', since they have two different member names?

Not that I've ever made a secret of it. I've mentioned more than once in past posts that I keep separate catalogs for each of the members of my family (going back well before collections existed). Also funny, on that tag search result page, under 'Using the tag {cover-upload', each of the other catalogs where I'd changed the original tag are still listed there, but say (0).

The tag pages are cached and take a while to regenerate. I wouldn't be surprised if you need to wait 48 hours for the tag page to update.

>72 sweetie_candykim:
The only way is to use tags which I don´t like doing if they are public, as they won´t apply to other people. Or collections.

You could put that info in the comment field, which is searchable, instead of using a tag or collection.

Edited to correct a mistake

The only way is to use tags which I don´t like doing if they are public, as they won´t apply to other people.

Why should this be a problem? I have many tags that aren't useful to others but they ARE useful to me...

bump

(Since Tim is thinking about covers these days.)

I don't care about a badge. Just want to know which of my covers are ones I've uploaded.

I would also like to see on the change covers page which cover I currently have. Often there are several similar ones.

81: yes :)

I would like to keep track of covers I have uploaded also.
I think covers are an important part of LibraryThing.
they help further identify which book you have.
some books have many covers and sometimes one will have a
unique cover.
maybe a credit line when you hover over the cover...
showing the member name and number of covers.

I've been going over my cover-tags, figure out which ones I still need to upload covers for, and I've found that some of them have a "my own cover" tag when I'm not certain it *is* my uploaded cover.

So yeah, a feature like this would be very awesome.

When I scan covers I use 72 dpi, 100% and save as PNG. The files end up being between 300 k and 1 MB after cropping and rotation. The result when scaled to 190 px high is satisfactory. I figure that compressing (i.e. JPG) before final processing is not a good idea.

I save the full-size images and have uploaded about 3,112 according to the number of files in this directory. Possibly some of these are re-edits of "found" web images which are cropped and uploaded. However, those will normally be JPG so I can probably only claim 2,853 images in that folder as PNGs.

I would like to know on my own listings if it is an uploaded vs. a selected cover. I also would not mind knowing how many times my uploaded cover is used by others. A goal in uploading covers is to not only make my catalog look good but to help LT overall on this area.
_____

A related query: Since the tab-delimited export has a book number but not the link to the image file, is there any way to accomplish this if one wanted to have a local copy of book data with the associated larger thumbnails? I'm thinking in terms of a locally-stored iPhone app database that shows my books not just the Amazon default image occasionally.

James Keeline

Have I read on other threads that if I delete a book from my library, and I've uploaded a cover for it, that the cover will be deleted unless another member is using it? Does this imply that LT already keeps track of the covers I've uploaded? Or does it just delete covers that nobody is using? If the latter is true, Tim may want to re-consider and keep (or at least review before deleting) those covers, as he tries to reduce LT's reliance on amazon.

I have uploaded many covers, and would *love it* if LT could show me the ones I've contributed. I upload to contribute to LT's database -- as well as to represent my actual books -- so I think a badge would be fun and warranted.

Also to help LT, I would contribute occasional cover images for books that are not in my library if that facility were provided (without workarounds such as creating another user or a covers-only collection).

86: from what I've gathered, LT doesn't delete unused covers, but it does hide them.

And they're debating a way to show those hidden covers.

Is there a way to add a credit when you upload a cover? I mostly upload my own scans, but if something is marked CC-BY I would like to do the polite thing and add the credit.

It would be really slick if LT did this automagically for scans grabbed by URL from well-known sites like Wikipedia, Flickr, etc.

Help! How do I delete a cover I uploaded in error? Can’t find this anywhere.

>90 Boand:
Select or upload a different one. If nobody is using the incorrect one you uploaded, it will go away.

>34 WilliamAllen: YES! Please do this. Thanks to all who shared ideas on bookcase o vers!