Learning New Things: Creating Video Thumbnails

My Cutest Thumbnail Yet

When I make videos and post them to YouTube, I seldom like the three selections that show up to use as the screen shot for the video.  When I make a title at the beginning, it never seems to be one of the three choices that come up to use.  When viewing "Tips for New Booktubers" by ChapterStackss, she mentioned that your videos are more likely to be watched if you use a custom thumbnail.  I think this is very true because based on my own habits, when I see a list of videos pop up on a related topic, the ones with the bright or cute thumbnails are generally the ones I watch.  If you upload any videos to YouTube, I highly recommend you watch her tip video.

I finally found out how to make a custom thumbnail (that's is what the video screen title is called).  I came across a tutorial on creating custom thumbnails for videos on Readables channel.  Although she specifically showed how to do it using GIMP, I found I can make some simple ones using PicMonkey and maybe my photoshop software (but I haven't tried that yet.)

Basically, it's pretty easy:

1.  When you upload your video to YouTube and the 3 options come up for which thumbnail to use, there is also a custom option which you click on.  (You must verify your account which is just a matter of typing in your phone number, receiving a secret code and putting that in the box.  This is a one-time step.)

2.  Choose a picture you want to use for your customized thumbnail and edit it the way you want.  The resize it to 1280 x 720.  (In picmonkey, I can only get one or the other because it automatically sets a different size for the other number, but I found it still works out.)

3.  Save your picture and then click on the custom thumbnail option to upload it and select it.  Remember to save your changes and it usually works.  Your custom picture will show when the video is displayed.

Do you use thumbnails for your videos?  I am so excited about learning how to do this!  Check out my YouTube Channel:  http://youtube.com/kzemek 

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