This is something that you will have to decide on yourself though.įor a basic rule of thumb, vlog & personal-styled content is usually more image orientated, whereas business, review & searchable content tends to have more text on the thumbnail itself. The same can be said though about other types of videos, where an image may be more than enough to capture people’s attention. It helps show people what the video is about in a way that an image may not be able to do. Text can be very important on a thumbnail if you’re doing reviews, teaching, etc. Protip: Zoom out to 25% for a thumbnail size more similar to what your potential viewers may see.
#How to make a thumbnail for youtube on photoshop full#
This may look off to you when viewing it at full screen, but when shrunk down to the size it is when a potential watcher sees it in their feed or search results, it will look fairly normal with an extra bit of pop! A good rule of thumb is to boost up the contrast, saturation, and sharpness by approximately 25%. You can use contrast in adjusting the color of the image as I show you in the video above. By having an attention-grabbing image, you’re increasing your click-through rate automatically as people wouldn’t have even seen your thumbnail previously. I touched on this slightly above, contrast-rich images grab attention more than flat pictures. Sometimes it can be beneficial to include something to tie your thumbnail to the category, which is why I used an image of the Eiffel Tower as the main image, but I chose colors that were very different from the rest of the results which catch the eye and may result in my video being watched first opposed to the others. In the example used in the video above, the results for ‘travel in Paris’ provide thumbnails that all have a similar look and feel, with words that don’t stand out and busy images with greens and the Eiffel tower. Once you can see what is being used & how things are being used, you can implement contrasting colors to what is already there whilst using emotion & text to differentiate yourself from the rest of the results. The easiest way to do this is to search for the terms you want to rank for on google and then look at what is already ranking. On the contrary, you’re looking for ways to make your thumbnail stand out from the rest of the videos on your topic.
When I say check out the competition, that doesn’t mean you should copy them. Once you’ve figured that out, it’s time to start designing. the basic outline of what your video is about & you should know any keywords you’re trying to rank for. Once you’ve finished recording and editing your video, you should have a few ideas already on what your thumbnails should look like or what you may want to include… I.e. 5 best practices for making a great thumbnail for YouTube