In the age of internet video,
having a good thumbnail for your project
is more important now than ever.
A video thumbnail is like a book cover,
and can be the difference between
people clicking on your video,
or just scrolling by.
The good news is,
you can crate a great eye catching thumbnail
without having to leave Final Cut Pro.
Hey guys, whats up.
This is Serge, and welcome back
to another Final Cut Pro tutorial.
If, like me, your final destination
for your project is the internet, having a great,
eye catching thumbnail that pops is very important.
In this video, I’ll show you how you can
create a great looking thumbnail right in Final Cut Pro,
using the thumbnail used in my previous video
as an example.
Just a quick reminder,
if you enjoy this, or any other one of my videos,
please hit the subscribe button below.
To make a thumbnail for your video,
first create a new project
in the same event your video is in.
From the menu bar select file,
new, and project,
or use the keyboard shortcut Command N.
Next, give your project a name
and select the video format.
I would recommend using the same format
for your thumbnail as your project.
If your project is HD, use the 1080P format,
or if your project is 4K, I would recommend
using the 4K format for your thumbnail project.
Since your final product will be a still image,
the video frame rate
and the audio options really don’t matter here.
Next, for your main thumbnail image
you have a couple options.
Option one is using a screen shot
from one of your video clips.
Skim over one of your browser clips,
and with the skimmer over the frame you want to use,
press Option F on your keyboard.
A four second freeze frame is added
as a connected clip to your timeline.
I’ll press Command Z to undo that.
Option two, and the preferred option if available
is using a high quality still image.
The higher resolution of still images
will leave you more flexibility when editing your thumbnail.
Select your still image in the browser,
and press E on your keyboard add it to your timeline.
The clip duration isn’t important in this case,
but pressing Shift Z will zoom in
on your clip to fill the timeline,
and give more space to work with.
Also, if your image is a different aspect ratio
than your project,
crop in on the image to eliminate the black bars.
I’m not going to get too deep into this,
but research shows that
depending on your video subject,
having a person in your thumbnail
may get you more clicks.
In my example, I want my subject to stand out a bit,
so I’ll desaturate the background,
while bumping up the saturation on my subject.
First, duplicate your clip
by holding down the option key and dragging up.
Next, from the effects browser,
add a draw mask to your top clip.
Add control points in the viewer to outline your subject.
You can zoom in in the viewer for more precision.
Next, with your top clip selected,
in the inspector,
select color inspector,
and in the saturation tab drag up the global puck
to give your subject a little bit more color.
Next, select your bottom clip
and bring down the global puck,
to desaturate your background
Another common practice used
by some bigger YouTubers
to make something pop in their thumbnail,
is adding a border around it.
Since our subject in the top clip is isolated,
this will be nice and easy using a downloaded plugin.
The one I use is BretFX Outliner,
and can be downloaded from BretFX.com.
Open the effects browser,
and drag and drop the effect over your clip.
There’s a number of parameters
in the inspector that can be adjusted,
depending on your image.
For my example,
the default presets work perfect.
For our next step,
since this is a Final Cut Pro tutorial,
lets add the Final Cut Pro icon,
between our subject and the background.
First, download the icon with a transparent background.
Next, click and drag the image from the browser,
and drop it between the two clips in the timeline.
Use the transform tool to resize the image,
and in the inspector,
bring down the opacity slider
to make it partially transparent.
We can also add some text to our image
by adding a title.
To add a basic title,
open the titles and generators sidebar,
and type in basic in the search box.
Select Basic Title,
and with your playhead at the start of your project,
press Q to connect it to your timeline.
Now, over in the inspector,
select the text inspector tab,
and enter your text.
This is where you can also adjust the font,
size,
color
and many other parameters of your text.
You can also reposition,
resize
and even rotate your text here.
Here’s a bonus tip
if you’re making a thumbnail for YouTube.
Adding a bright border around your image,
will make your thumbnail appear highlighted.
To add a border to your image,
first Press Command A to select all your clips
and Option G to combine all your clips
into one compound clip.
Next, in the effects browser,
type in simple border into the search box.
Drag and drop it over your clip,
adjust the width,
and change it to a nice, bright color.
And there you have it,
a nice bright thumbnail image
to use when uploading your video .
To export this image,
simply place your playhead
anywhere over your clip,
hit the share button,
and choose Save Current Frame.
If you don’t see a Save Current Frame preset,
you can add it by clicking Add Destination.
Select your file type,
hit next and choose your destination for your image.
I hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial,
and this gives you some ideas
how to create an eye catching thumbnail
for your next video.
As always,
if you have any questions
ask in the comments below,
and either me,
or someone else who knows the answer
can help you out.
And if you haven’t yet,
check out the rest of my channel
for more Final Cut Pro tutorials.
New videos released weekly,
so hit the subscribe button so you don’t miss them.
Thanks for watching,
and I hope to see you back next week.