Thumbnails

Make a setCopy Anchor Link

Open Thumbnails and choose New thumbnails. A full page opens with the video on the left and the thumbnails it learns from on the right. Start from a video, a script or just a title. Make thumbnails on a finished voiceover, script or video opens the same page with that one already chosen. You get three takes, each with its own idea.

Style from your referencesCopy Anchor Link

A set learns the look of the thumbnails you study: the framing, the type and the colours. By default it uses the best performing videos of your reference channels (add them in Topics). Already have a channel that works? Choose My channel and the takes follow your own best performing thumbnails instead, so new videos look like they belong next to your hits. The set keeps your type, colours and framing and only changes the idea. Add your channel as your own in Topics first. Whichever of the two you pick last is remembered, so Autopilot and every set made for you follow it too.

The set does not just take the most viewed thumbnails. It reads your title (or the title of the video or script you picked) and picks the four thumbnails whose stories are closest to it, so a video about a phone launch learns from phone launch thumbnails, not from whatever went viral last month. Views only break ties. The picks are checked in the grid with a short reason under each one. Tap any thumbnail to swap it in or out, up to four, and Best matches puts the automatic picks back. Autopilot and sets started from a voiceover use the same matching.

To try a different look for one set, choose Just this set and paste up to four YouTube video links or upload thumbnails.

Nobody in a reference thumbnail is copied, and neither is another channel's name, badge or watermark.

Three ways to make a takeCopy Anchor Link

Every set makes one take each way, so you can keep the one that wins:

• Painted: one picture painted from your references.

• Painted in pieces: the background, you or the subject, and each prop are painted on their own, then put together with real logos and live text.

• From the web: built from real pictures, the way a thumbnail designer works, one layer at a time:

• Real people from the story, products, places and screenshots are found on Google Images and cut out.

• Brand and software logos come from a logo library or the web.

• You are photographed in the pose the idea needs, from your kit photos, and cut out.

• Only what does not exist as a real picture, like a background scene or a made up prop, is painted by an image model, and it is painted on its own.

• The words are set last as live text.

The designer then looks at the take next to your references, fixes the layout and looks again before it is done. While a set is being made you can watch what each take is doing. Building takes a few minutes.

Put yourself in itCopy Anchor Link

Add two to four clear photos of your face in Thumbnail kit. With Put me in it on, the takes star you, with the pose and expression the idea needs.

Edit in the Image StudioCopy Anchor Link

Pick a take and choose Edit in Image Studio. It opens with every layer exactly as it was built: the background, each cut out, each logo and the words as live text. Nothing is guessed back out of a flat picture, so swapping a logo or moving a face never breaks the rest. Sets made before 26 October 2026 are split into layers from the flat picture instead. Change anything, then go back to Thumbnails. A few seconds after each save the take is updated, and that version goes on the video.

Use for the videoCopy Anchor Link

Use for the video sets which take is uploaded with the video. Download saves a 1280 by 720 JPEG for YouTube Test and Compare.

Limits and creditsCopy Anchor Link

20 thumbnail sets a venture a day. A set costs 10 credits, and editing in the Image Studio is included. Sets made before 18 October 2026 keep their original editor.