Basically thumbnails are the cover photo of your videos which gives the whole idea to the viewer about the content of your video. We can say it in easy way that it is the summary of whole video. So it takes half of the effort as compare to your whole video because it is the main thing that attracts the viewers towards your video.
If you have good and informative content in your video but don’t know how to design an attractive thumbnail your whole effort will be waste because viewer have no time to see all the video and then realize the idea of your video as many scammers do by making false thumbnails having misguided or wrong content in it make trust issues in viewers so your thumbnail should based on real and attractive material.
Some Basic things you should keep in Mind:
- Don’t copy official channels thumbnails or content it may suspend your account or channel.
- Thumbnail should have attractive content in it which also creates some suspense for viewers.
- Don’t spread false or irrelevant information rather than your content of the video.
- Font Size and family and color bordering and image pixels should be clear to read and view.
- Don’t use flaming colors in your thumbnail.
Tools for making Thumbnails:
You can use various types of tools to make thumbnails such as,
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe CS6
- Adobe Illustrator
- Snapseed (for mobile users having no laptop)
- Lightroom (for both mobile and laptop)
How to use Adobe Products are present in this tutorial.
We will use Adobe CS6 for making a thumbnail.
- First of all take snapshot or screenshot of some images from your video for using them into thumbnail or download the images which don’t have copyright issues.
- How to download images having HD size and no copyright issue?Search on Google about the content you want to download.
There are many other websites available which gives you free images for commercial usage such as,
- FREEIMAGES
- Wikimedia Commons
- Flickr
- io
- Unsplash
How to Make Attractive Thumbnail on Photoshop CS6?
- Open Photoshop CS6 -> Click on File on top -> Select New. As shown in figure 1.
- A Wizard Box will be open, put the Project name on Top and set the value of Width = 1280 and Height = 720 and at the end in Background Content Make the Background white or Transparent. As shown in figure 2.
- If you select White Background Then with the Help of Gradient Tool you can give color to your Background. As shown in figure 3.
- Here are some Images by all of these we are going to make an attractive Thumbnail for our Youtube Videos.
- Open all of your Snapshots or downloaded Images in CS6.
- Select Background color of each of your image using Magic Wand Tool and by Hold and Click Select the Option Inverse Select and Cut the Selected Image Using Ctr+X and paste it to your Project File using Ctr+V Key Command.
- Do it same to all of the remaining Images and Also Paste them all to a suitable Position in your Main project file.
Use ctr+T Short Key Command to adjust the pasted image on the main project.
Now to Make some attractive effect add some other border lines or images to your thumbnail project just select the background of the image with the help of Magic Wand Tool and same select the inverse select by hold and click with your right mouse and copy the selected image and paste it to your project. As shown in step 1.(To make it more Effective and Attractive by selecting that image click on Edit Window and then transform option and select Wrap option.
- Wrap the image by adjusting its edges and set the position as shown in step 2.
- And then select that image by its layer and Click Right and Select the option of Duplicate Layer and adjust it on the other corner or the project as shown in step 3.
Now give the more clarity to your image by Zoom Tool and setting the background more clearly on each side or corner of all pasted images with the help of Gradient or Brush Tool.
Now make some Banners to Define the Thumbnail to the viewers. It is the main thing which tells the viewers about make content of video. So choose attractive and Short Words for it.
Select the Custom Shapes Tool options as shown in step 1 and on the top select the random shapes as shown in step 2. A cursor having “+” sign will appear after selecting the shape. Drag the cursor holding the mouse right button.
Use the ctr+T short key command to adjust the size and for rotating the banner and arrows.
Use the Text Tool to Write the Text on the Shape. Adjust its size and rotation same by using command short key ctr+T
(If text is hidden behind the shape then select the layer of that shape and then type the text, it will appear in front of the shape.)
Now add the final Image or Icon of your Channel or the Social Media Platform where you want to upload your video as shown Youtube icon In the bottom.
Now Final attractive thumbnail of your video is ready to upload.
