With the rise of YouTube TV, it's inevitable for YouTube to increase their maximum upload size (on desktop) to 50MB for thumbnails. This finally allows creators to upload 4K thumbnails, instead of 720p.
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In YouTube's help article where they give their best practices for custom thumbnails, they've now changed their resolution from 1280 x 720 pixels to 3840 x 2160 pixels.
You can continue to make thumbnails the same way you've been before, but know that you won't get the full resolution that YouTube now offers.
Remember that you need to make your thumbnail in a 16:9 aspect ratio if you don't want black bars to show. On your podcast, it needs to be 1:1 instead of 16:9.
Note that you can only upload thumbnails up to 50MB on desktop only. On mobile, it's still 2 MB for videos and 10 MB for podcasts.
More and more people are watching YouTube on TV, and that only brings the inevitable. 720p thumbnails don't look great on a 2K or 4K monitor. This is why YouTube has decided to up the limit to 50MB instead of 2 MB or 10 MB.
It's great that YouTube's made this change and all, but it doesn't help much if you're not sure where to start when it comes to creating thumbnails.
The good news is, it doesn't have to be difficult with TubeSpanner's Thumbnail Editor.
There are two ways to get to the Thumbnail Editor. The first is by going into the TubeSpanner dashboard, clicking on Produce, Create a Thumbnail, and then New Thumbnail.
This drops you onto a blank canvas where you can start building from scratch.
Prefer a head start or not sure where to start? Browse TubeSpanner's pre-made thumbnails and customize one to fit your needs. You can also choose from template backgrounds or use prompts to generate AI backgrounds.
When you load a template, every image and text elements comes in as its own layer, giving you full control over every piece of the thumbnail.
TubeSpanner's editor comes loaded with the tools you'd expect from a professional photo editor:
You can also fine-tune your photos with adjustments like opacity, brightness, contrast, saturation, and more. And if you want a clean, polished look, the built-in AI tool can remove the background from any person in your thumbnail.
Every thumbnail you create is saved in the Projects folder. Just make sure to save before exiting the page so nothing gets lost!
The second way to reach the Thumbnail Editor is through the Inspiration/Homerun tool.
Type in a title into Homerun to find videos that are performing well beyond their channel average. See a thumbnail that you like? Click on "Create variation." In our example, we'll be using a thumbnail from Linus Tech Tips.
A popup will appear showing the thumbnail you selected, the title, and a thumbnail description that's automatically filled in as the prompt. Below that, you'll have the option to select or upload an emotion image.
This is a photo of you or your avatar expressing the right emotion for the thumbnail. If you don't have one uploaded, TubeSpanner will use a random avatar. We'll be using the "Confidence or Cool" image to generate the next picture.
Once you've selected your emotion image, click "Generate Inspired Thumbnail," TubeSpanner will get to work.
Keep generating until you find one you like, then click the "click here" button below the image to open it in the Thumbnail Editor.
Just like templates, generated templates load into the editor as individual layers, so you can move and adjust each element freely.
One thing to keep in mind: TubeSpanner avoids generating text, so you'll need to add any text directly in the editor yourself.
Once you've got the thumbnail you want, click on the "Download" button on the top right button!
If you've got feedback for the Thumbnail Editor, please contact [email protected]!
