How to Burn a CD With Album Art

When burning an audio CD, you can copy not only music content, but other information as well, that can translate to other computers and MP3 players. This would include song titles, artist information and album artwork. The artwork specifically can make a CD copy complete, as it creates a visual aspect to the otherwise auditory medium. To do this, you must make adjustments to the ID3 tags of the song file, which contain the nonaudio information.

Download the album artwork from the Internet and save it to your desktop. You can type the name of the album into an "Image Search" page on sites like "Yahoo!," "Google" and "Bing," or you can find it on music retail sites like Amazon (see Resources). To save, right-click the album cover and click "Save As."

Open a program that permits ID3 tag editing. Popular, commercial-grade examples include iTunes, Winamp and Windows Media Player (see Resources).

Import the songs that you want to burn, if they do not already appear in your selected software. Simply drag the songs onto the main software window and create a new playlist for them. Your "New Playlist" option should appear on your main window or under the "File" menu.

Highlight the songs using your mouse. Hold down "Shift" and click each title.

Access your options. Right-click one of your selections and click the "Info" or "Tags" options. In iTunes, the option appears as "Get Info"; in Winamp, it appears as "View File Info"; in Windows Media Player, it appears as "Advanced Tag Editor."

Click the "Artwork" or "Image" tab and select the "Add Artwork" option. Using the pop-up window, select the album art from your desktop.

Insert a blank CD-R into your CD-ROM drive.

Select the playlist or library featuring the songs you want to copy, and click the "Burn" or "Burn Disc" button, usually appearing in the lower right corner of the window.