This video is brought to you by Paperlike.
Alright, this will be the first one for the channel. Let me show you how I use my
12.9 inch iPad Pro to create a YouTube thumbnail. From planning to shooting and then editing,
the end result will hopefully be something you'll click on. You be the judge of that at the end.
I'll be posting my long-term iPad Pro review in few weeks (stay tuned for that),
so I decided to take the opportunity and create a good thumbnail that can hopefully
generate decent click-through rates. The first step of the process is inspiration,
which I usually find in other videos and, in most cases, Instagram and Pinterest.
Spending half an hour usually convinces me that my initial concept is good enough, so
I hop onto Procreate to do a rough sketch of what I want to shoot and edit. This year,
two key elements distinguish the latest 12.9 inch iPad Pro. That is the M1 chip and the XDR display.
It is challenging to do something creative with an actual m1 chip because they are
tiny and difficult to demonstrate, so XDR is the keyword for this thumbnail.
In my mind, I want to prop the iPad on a table and sort of peel off the display to showcase the
mini-led's as if they are glowing - showcasing a burst of light. Two other vital components are the
text, which will go last, and my persona because the thumbnail presence is just what the algorithm
doctor prescribed. Once I have the rough idea and concept sketched out, it is time to shoot. Since
I'll be doing everything on my own, setting up the camera, and taking a photo of myself,
I will resort to an app called Camrote, which works fantastic with my Sony cameras and allows
me to control the A7III from a distance. Great for framing and creating high-quality selfies. To sell
the effects that I usually come up with, I always try and resort to actual physical objects that
will give me a real-life reference, which I can later on mask off. In the case of this thumbnail,
I'll be using simple blue notepaper that I will tape to the corner of the iPad and actually hold
it with my fingers on camera as if I am really pealing off the screen. I am not worried at this
stage about what is displayed on the screen of the iPad because I will be replacing it
digitally later on. With my camera set to manual focus on the iPad and Camrote, I fire up the 5 or
10-second timer and start fooling around making some shocked and funny faces. I don't usually take
too many photos of myself because I find that weird, so 3 shots are enough. Next up,
downloading the images from the SD card and moving the work to the iPad itself. Once I have my image,
I fire up Lightroom for two critical corrections. Although I can go much deeper into Lightroom and
really manipulate the image to a pleasant degree, I'll be doing a lot more work in Affinity Photo
later, so for now, in Lightroom, all I'll do is a lens correction to fix the distortion
and eliminate the lens vignetting and an auto color and tone correction before exporting to
Affinity. BTW, if you end up enjoying this video, subscribe...because why not?
Once I've imported the much better-looking photo into Affinity Photo,
it's time to start bending reality. So, the 2 most important steps are to create two masks
that I'll be using to bend the artificially added iPad home-screen, which is essentially
a screenshot. The first mask will be used to go around the screen of the iPad and around the
edges of my fingers and the second mask will be used to go over the bezel of the tablet,
fixing any reflections and imperfections like the blue paper that covers a portion of it
due to the angle of the shot. Once I have created the mask, I'll do some distortion tests to see
which distortion tool will be ideal for simulating an actual screen bending. At some point I'll add
the mini-led display lighting panel, which I took directly from Apple's website. I will have to
perform another transformation via the perspective tool to align it as best I can with the corner
of the iPad. This image is not that great, but I'm not concerned since it will be used underneath
some exploding light beams. Once I have created my masks, I will draw a piece of paper or screen
with the pen tool, which will essentially be the folded or bent screen. Using the real paper upon
shooting the photo helps me tremendously at this stage since I have a real-life reference
point that I can use to draw over. This reference point is excellent for shadowing later on as well.
So drawing that fold is really simple and although there are some tiny imperfections on
some of my pen outlines, I am not concerned since I can always go back and correct
them as I'll do later. Next, I move towards drawing the shadow cast by the folded screen,
which is based on the original blue paper. By using the pen tool again, I am precise around
the edges of my fingers and the folded portion of the image, but not so concerned about the right
piece of the shadow since I'll use the eraser tool to gradually fade it out. Playing with the opacity
a bit, the end result is good enough for me. After refining the pen outlines, I move forward to draw
some highlights around the bottom portion of my fingers. Theoretically, there's light
coming from the screen of the iPad. Of course, I can spend a few hours actually drawing some
natural light, but using the dodge and burn tools for a thumbnail is more than enough.
Lightning, the top portion of the fold, creates the illusion of a real screen bend
and simulates the light that will be coming from underneath. BTW, all those color corrections are
really simple to apply with the pencil, and it is definitely more precise than using a mouse.
Talking about precision, I use a screen protector on my tablet, which is by Paperlike,
and it is definitely the very first accessory that I apply on all my iPads. It works in tandem
with the apple pencil to deliver the closest experience to writing and drawing on actual paper,
eliminating the weird pencil-on-glass feeling, so it's a lot more than just a screen protector.
Not to mention that if I were to do one of those thumbnail sessions without Paperlike,
I would have to spend just as much time when done to wipe off all the nasty fingerprints,
which are almost nonexistent with the protector applied. When ordering Paperlike,
in the package, you get two screen protectors and everything necessary to make your application
straightforward. Be sure to check the first link in the description below to get your Paperlike,
and as always, thanks, Paperlike, for supporting the channel.
So, after refining some edges, the next step is finding a good image of a burst of light. Once I
find it, I place it beneath the fold and tablet screen and change the blend mode to Lighten,
eliminating the blue background and leaving the bright burst of light. Next up is erasing
excess lights and that nasty Lorem impsum text, duplicating the later 2 more times to create even
more light flares and grouping them for further manipulation. Adding a live light filter gives me
the flexibility to play with the light even more before I add an HSL filter to change the color
of the light and make it more….POPing as a good friend of mine, likes to call it. Using the dodge
tool, I add more rim light to my fingers (again, this is not the coolest way to do it), and off
I go to finally set my canvas to the appropriate 16:9 ratio in 4k or 3840 by 2160. Once I do that,
it's time for the fun stuff. Color grading, LUTs, vibrancy, and sharpening where necessary.
At some point I also use the Affinity library to add artificial haze or smoke around my portion
of the image to create more suspense, depth, and generally less flat feeling.
Of course, adding my watermark is a necessary step, and finally, a text box that says iPad
Pro. I wondered where exactly to place that box before I decided to ditch it behind my head
by masking it and adding a bit of Gaussian blur to make it actually stand behind my head.
And voila… that's the final result. Usually, at this stage, I let the image
simmer for about 12 hours before I look at it again and decide on some final changes.
While I do that, you be the judge in the video poll and tell me what you think
about this thumbnail - YAY or NEY Meanwhile, if you enjoyed this video, you might find my iPad
playlist helpful. If you have any questions, please list them in the comment section below
or ping me on twitter. As always, it's been an absolute pleasure, This is E Over and out