What is a thumbnail? If you know what it is, why should you care about it? How do
you create a thumbnail template? -That's exactly what he's going to tell us about
right now. We're talking today about designing custom thumbnails for your
YouTube videos. And a Nate has no surprise some experience and some
insights into that. So, why don't you walk us through a little bit of that?
-Absolutely. So, we're going to show you stuff on the computer. Show you
exactly how I I find a theme or get ideas for a theme. We're gonna go into
Photoshop. And so we'll create a thumbnail template.
But I wanted to start talking about a theme and where to get ideas for a theme
for your thumbnails and for your channel. And I love looking at other channels. I
don't think that there's anything wrong with it. In fact, I highly encourage it,
highly recommend to look at other channels especially successful ones and see what
they're doing and get ideas from that and then create your own. You don't
want to... You don't want to just blatantly copy and do everything exactly. But
you'll get some great ideas. -You can get close. -Yeah. You can absolutely get close.
So, let me bring up my screen
here. I've got four channels that I picked out. What's inside? Okay? They do a
really good job of creating thumbnails that are just still images from their
video. But these are custom thumbnails. They're not just letting YouTube decide
what image. They're probably taking a separate photo or grabbing a
shot in their video that's like what's going to create the most curiosity. -So
basically, someone like me, (I'm pretty new to this) I know that when I upload a
video, YouTube is going to give me some what I think are just randomly generated
suggestions that I can choose? And most of the time people think, "Well, I've got
to pick one of those." But there is an option where it says "Add your own...?" -Right.
So, YouTube gives you 3 options. And they're just randomly... From three different
times in your video. And that the fourth option that you're talking about is
custom thumbnail. You have to have your account verified on YouTube to be able
to do that. That sounds tricky but when you go into your settings and go to
verify your YouTube channel, it will send you a text message with
code. And then you come back to your YouTube channel, enter in that code, *bing!*
your verified. -I did that recently. -So, that's... -I finally got verified. Yeah.
-That's as simple as that. And once your channels verified, you can then upload
custom thumbnails. Meaning, you designed the still image that's going to show on
the screen. -And that's pretty cool. Because that's not even part of YouTube
premium. So... I mean, it's a fun little feature that you don't have to upgrade
and spend any more money on. -And it makes a huge difference. I mean, this
picture is what's going to entice people to watch your videos. So, if you've got
poor thumbnails, you're going to get poor view numbers. If you get really good
thumbnails, you could have crappy content, you could have a lousy video. But if you
have a great thumbnail and a great catchy title, you'll get a lot of people
to click on. -So, that's why I like about this What's Inside is they have a catchy
title so they don't need to put any text over the actual thumbnail. They're just
the still photos. -Yeah. Because their videos are so interesting. I mean, my son
and I watched this and What's Inside a Mexican jumping... -View in 3 million
other people, yeah! That is fascinating. -They show and exact knife going right inside... I mean,
so it's like that's obviously a very intentional moment. Or What's Inside a
magic chessboard. I'm kind of curious. That one to me is a little bit less
boring. But maybe they had an axe chopping into it or something. -Yeah.
-But what's inside a piano? Why are they out in the woods? That's what I
want to know. So, he's got a crazy face looking, What's Inside
microwave popcorn? Anyway, so... Well, It's kind
of look like me. -That's Dan. Meet Dan and Lincoln.
-Okay. -Alright. So, this is one example is you just get great still shots from your
video that are intentional. And they don't have to be in your video. You can
then afterwards say, "Okay, what would make a good thumbnail?" Make this face and you
know take a picture of it. -Right. -And you can design it. Let's show you another
example. Okay, this is sunny Lenarduzzi. This is her YouTube channel
and she does a lot of social media marketing. Yeah, she puts her
face in a lot of them. Faces and thumbnails for some reason get results.
-And she's pretty. So... You know what I mean. It's pretty eyes, pretty face. That's going to
grab your attention. -And something else that you notice is
there's a theme. You can see her theme has kind of changed over time back
I guess if we go back five months ago, she had this gold border around all of
her videos except for that one. Had maroon. But she's she kind of sticks to a
theme that it looks like it's evolved over time, okay? So, you can get ideas even
just on this one channel. There's lots of different ideas of.. And maybe you can
look at, "Okay, this is what she used to do. This is what she does now. I wonder why
she changed." Maybe a certain one worked better. Oh, she only did that one for a
month and then she switched again. So... Anyway, what I really like is that
there's a theme. She sticks to a theme. What I mean about theme is she
always uses the color gold and she always uses black and white text or
white on black. -It's kind of part of her brand. -Yeah. -So, here's another theme. This
is a real fun Channel. I've actually met them and I interviewed them in a couple
of episodes about how to become a YouTuber and how to become a vlogger.
They live in their RV full-time. And they live in an RV and they go and they
visit national parks and vlog about it. They've got patrons that support them
through patreon. They get Adsense revenue. He was a web designer. She is an RN nurse
but now they travel. And this is their career. But they use that same
theme the white with yellow big black letters. All caps. -Yeah. So, this is kind of
a combination. They take a shot from the episode. -Right. -But then they they add in
that same color of text. And you can see that there's kind of a shadow from the
left edge going in. There's kind of a shadow.. -Oh, right. -This one it looks
like it's on the right side. But they just... They put a little filter over
the top of them on the side where the text is. -Right. Because it helps
the text to stand out and not get lost in that. Yeah. -So... And they're very
consistent. They've stuck with that theme. So, even if it were a
different picture... Like this one here, I don't I recognize Marissa right
there. But because it's the white and yellow text and just subconsciously, I'll
know that that's those guys. So, anyway. I'm going to
show you one more example and then we'll get into Photoshop in creating a template.
So, what I like what Grant has done here on the king of random is he put the the
kind of the caution tape borders. Put his logo and at the top right corner there.
And obviously, they they go for epic shots and they color enhance them. -Yes.
-They picked the points of high action in their videos and grab that image and
design it out really well. -And that's clearly a template because they're just popping
in the picture or whatever with that same border, with the logo, whereas the
other ones don't have those. Or I would imagine that's... -Right. Okay. So
now, let's switch over to photoshop. Okay, so this is a simple template that we use
for limitless TV. And all the template is it's a file that I reuse over and over.
It's always got the logo in the top left corner. It's got these gold stripes in
the 2 opposing corners right there. And so then I can go and
grab an image and I can paste it over the top of that. So, just for the sake of
this, let's... This could always be dangerous, right? What if we go to Google
and we'll do a search? Let's say we're making a video about watermelons. That
ought to be safe. -Alright. Yes, I'm sure it will. -Alright. So...
Now, be responsible with your photos. Make sure you have the rights to
use all the images that you grab of the internet. So, let's assume... Call it
watermelon. Okay, so I'm going to open that image now.
And I can select all, copy that. I've got the watermelon image in my board.
Now, I can just go down to the layer of Kris' in front of his BMW there and just
hit paste. And I'll put the watermelon in there. So, that's what I mean by a
template. And I could come in here and in size it. Alright? I can just... I like to
scale it like that. So, we'll show me the the borders of the image and I can just
drag it and position it the way that I want. I can do a lot of settings
here in Photoshop and hit enter. And so now, I've just... I've used my template and
I've just switched out to the background. And I can come and change the text if I
want to. -Obviously I might want to move that text to a different spot
and I could show you how to do that. -I imagine if you don't have Photoshop,
there's probably also other applications out there that will help you make your
own thumbnails, right? -You have to use Photoshop or it won't
work on YouTube. Okay, he knows I'm joking. -Yes. -So, if you don't have Photoshop or don't have
access to Photoshop, you can go to google and type in Photoshop alternate,
photoshop alternatives or free photoshop alternatives. And you'll find lots of
different options. I bet if we typed in "YouTube thumbnail maker",
there would be somebody... Maybe I should make that. -Go for it. -Should I? Would
that be way I could make money on... -I don't think so. Yes, you should do it. There's
lots of things that you can do. I mean on this on this box, let's go to the
words "Retired at 26". I mean, it's got a little shadow on it. And if I double
click on that, I can come in here and increase the distance. You know, so I can...
There's a lot of things that you can do. The purpose of this video
though, I just want to say keep it simple because if there's something specific
you want to do, you can then go to Google or YouTube and type in "How to add a
shadow in Photoshop?" -Right, right. -And you'll learn specific... -Yeah, exactly. You can learn
Photoshop in your sleep with all of the stuff that's out there.
Yeah. -So, maybe one day I'll make some Photoshop tutorials. But the purpose of
this one, it's just how to create a thumbnail. And I think it's most
important to to find your theme and to create a template. Kind of create that
shell yeah that you can then just reuse over and over. And so you'll just save it
as thumbnailtemplate.PSD. That's a Photoshop file. And then every
time you just open that up, paste it in your new background. Change some text and
hit save. And it's already the right dimensions and everything. Ideal
dimensions for a thumbnail for YouTube is 1280 by 720 as described by them. -And
right, it tells you that on there, right? I mean... -That's what YouTube does.
Yeah. YouTube says. -Beautiful. -You have a homework assignment. 2 parts. First part
is to study other channels and come up with an idea for your theme. For your
thumbnail design theme. And then create one. Just create one and turn it into your
template. That's your assignment. -Then you won't be graded. Unless you send it to us.
-Well, they will be graded but not by us. They'll be great if I have any views and
clicks. -That's right.