Best Way to Make a Thumbnail

DaRealApollo

DaRealApollo

Loving YTtalk
So one of the big things about making YouTube videos is having incising video thumbnails. Currently, I have a similar style of thumbnail throughout all my most recent videos. I make sure they have a translucent gradient from a bright color to black in them, and I always have a channel branding along the left side of the thumbnail. So I was wondering if you guys had any tips on making very interesting thumbnails.
 
Something that I like to do is add a drop shadow effect to my text. I makes it pop out a little more.
 
Use Photoshop, get images from google images and then put the title of your video in text in big letters.
 
I use keynote on the Mac. I save all my thumbnails on the same presentation. I use the same fonts and asses for most of the branding of my thumbnails. I then take a screenshot from a cool part of my video. My recommendation is make one "template" and polish it until it's great. Make sure to look at it shrunk down so you aren't trying to cram to much info in. I make all of my thumbnails with smartphones in mind. Feel free to check out my Channel and give me feedback on my thumbs.
 
Don't fill the whole thumbnail with text. Keep it clear and to the point, and most importantly, make it engaging.

As a side, thin serif fonts don't tend to work well at smaller sizes so bare that in mind when setting up your thumbnail. Bold simple fonts work best. I'm not going to click a video if I have to put effort into trying to descipher what it says in the thumbnail because you've used 'bleeding cowboy' at 6pt size :)


crashtesttoys said:
I use keynote on the Mac. I save all my thumbnails on the same presentation. I use the same fonts and asses for most of the branding of my thumbnails. I then take a screenshot from a cool part of my video. My recommendation is make one "template" and polish it until it's great. Make sure to look at it shrunk down so you aren't trying to cram to much info in. I make all of my thumbnails with smartphones in mind. Feel free to check out my Channel and give me feedback on my thumbs.
Click to expand...
Hey man, I looked at your channel, my kids love stuff like that.

I'd say your text needs to be bigger/bolder in your thumbnails, or maybe outlined and/or drop shadowed just to lift it off the background image a bit. Some of it seems to get a bit lost at the smaller sizes. Hope that helps :)
 
DaRealApollo said:
So one of the big things about making YouTube videos is having incising video thumbnails. Currently, I have a similar style of thumbnail throughout all my most recent videos. I make sure they have a translucent gradient from a bright color to black in them, and I always have a channel branding along the left side of the thumbnail. So I was wondering if you guys had any tips on making very interesting thumbnails.
Click to expand...

Thumbnails to me is suppose to:
1. Attract Attention
2. Reflect what is your video going to be about.

I use a couple of apps to make my thumbnail (Pic Monkey, Online Photo Editor, MS paint)
You want to make thumbnail that makes viewers go like... WoOOo whats that?! (Curious)
So they would click on your videos. But pls no click bait.

Make a Thumbnail that speaks for what your video content is.

I normally use images from the Video games I played and edit them.
 
My question on the subject. For a gaming channel, is it best to have a standard series thumbnail with a update (same background but a little different foreground image) or is it better to have a different background all together? I personally would think that a series thumbnail should keep the same background so the viewers can easily pick out your next video but Im not expert.
 
VSauce did a video where this was mentioned. I always see it when I go to my dashboard on YouTube. You might check it out, it has some good tips.

I hope this helps. If you can't find it, send me a message and I'll send you the link, :).
 
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