Ok, here is a update for anyone following because they have the same problem

it seems that moving fgolders to a folder named .medaart actually works to keep them from showing up in the photo viewer. the good thing is that it doesnt hide the music files so they show up in the media player along with the album art even though the album art is in a folder named ".mediaart"

you may have a problem doing this on the n900 or even in a windows system but here is a trick to get around it

either move the picture thats bugging you to another folder that is already named ".mediaart" (which may cause the wrong album art to show up in the media player as the art itself must be in the same parent folder as the mp3 file)

ORRRR

you can copy a media art folder from some where else to the same folder as the mp3 file. THEN!!!! delete all the pics from the newly pasted ".mediaart" folder as it has pics in it from other albums or book covers or what ever you had in there

then simply copy and paste the appropriate album art work for the respective album i that newly pasted folder

this worked for me and i hope it works for others