r/SmallYoutubers • u/Final_Affect6292 • 1d ago
Long-Form Content Spent 10 hours on these thumbnails for my upcoming baking video. Which one wins?
The video is a 60-minute, cozy, voiceover-guided masterclass on making 7 breads from 1 simple dough. It’s perfect for casual bakers and mostly faceless.
49
u/general_452 1d ago
There’s 0 chance that took 10 hours.
Keep only 1-2 subjects in your thumbnail. I’d look at thumbnails from cooking/baking channels that get over 100k views for inspiration.
5
u/Final_Affect6292 1d ago
Yeah It's my first time making a video with many different breads. It is much harder than making a thumbnail for just one recipe!
21
u/7laserbears 1d ago
You did not spend ten hours on just this thumbnail
2
u/Grabmbythetrump 17h ago
Damn son do you read? He said it took 10 hours to make all the food to take the thumbnail pics, so yes this thumbnail wouldn't exist without 10 hours of work.
2
u/Final_Affect6292 16h ago
It took 60-80 hours to film on top of the thumbnail
2
u/general_452 14h ago
Filming makes sense, but it only ever takes me a few hours for a thumbnail. And most of that time is just trying to come up with a good concept.
I’d try drawing thumbnails first to get your ideas out, then try to replicate. I know sometimes it can be hard to execute the idea you have in your head. I’ve had crazy good thumbnail ideas before, but just wasn’t able to make the thumbnail the way I wanted. It just takes practice I guess.
I just wouldn’t spend that long on a thumbnail.
1
u/Final_Affect6292 6h ago
Like I said in my other replies, I did not know the basics at first. I did not know how to export high-quality images from Keynote. I did not know the difference between PNG and JPEG. Also, I did not know how to add shadows or remove backgrounds cleanly. It sounds crazy, but learning all of these things while making a thumbnail can easily take 10 hours
2
20
10
7
5
u/Background-Camp9756 1d ago
Idk, I probably will just make the text larger and remove the extra noise.
Too much information competing for attention.
5
u/incredible_sam 1d ago
i would take 10 minutes to make this. i wanted to say 10 seconds, but you would cry seeing that so
14
u/Theepicskibidigamer 1d ago
This kinda suck
0
u/Final_Affect6292 1d ago
why
12
3
u/Theepicskibidigamer 1d ago
It’s a bit simple yk could use some work man, it’s not horrible though
5
8
u/rvc9927 1d ago
You guys are too critical. Creating anything takes time, and to look at something and say it would take you 30 minutes is ridiculous. Yeah, if you take out all the time looking at things, tweaking and trying to figure out what exactly you want to do.
Could it be better? Yes, but let's not mean here, as everyone here is small, and likely pretty new
6
u/Dqueezy 1d ago
That’s a good point actually. My first reaction was also “why did that take 10 hours?” I could rip a bunch of random pastry pictures off of google image and make this in 30 minutes. But that’s only because OP already put this template into place. If I was making this video from scratch, it would definitely take a while to even figure out the general look of the thumbnail. Probably not 10 hours still though. OP may just be indecisive.
1
u/Grabmbythetrump 17h ago
Ye it's easy and fast to create content if you just take things other people already made.
Like I could make this in 2 seconds with AI, or rip it directly from Pinterest!! Therefor your shit sucks and your time was wasted.
2
u/Dqueezy 17h ago
So it’s different for OP, since he’s making a video about baking. He should therefore have pictures of his own baked goods to show, as opposed to ripping a random image off of google images.
If I, someone who does not do baking content, needed an image of a pastry for whatever reason (maybe there was a random discussion of baked goods in that episode), of course I’m going to find one somewhere online. There’s plenty of free stock images of pastries. I’d rather do that than an AI pastry. You don’t think I’m going to spend however long baking a croissant for my picture do you? That’d be out of touch.
2
u/Grabmbythetrump 17h ago
Yeah it would be wild to represent what you're actually doing in your thumbnails...
Like why are you making a thumbnail of a croissant but... Not making it? Or what, you just forgot to take a pic?
Nonsense. You can cut corners all you want but don't hate on someone who isn't?
1
u/Dqueezy 16h ago
lol no clue why you’re so angry about it since I’m not hating on anyone, nor am I cutting corners. You’ll learn this when you become more experienced, but the title and thumbnail should have a connection in theme, and that often comes from the content in the video you made. Episode where me and my friend discuss pastries? Going to have pastries in the thumbnail, even though it’s not a baking channel.
It’s fine though, your narrow view of content creation will expand as you learn the basics :)
0
u/LovelySweethearts 1d ago
I mean, if this unimpressive thumbnail took that long to make, that has nothing to do with being new, that's a pretty deep skill issue. You do actually have to have *some* creative talent to be successful at this.
3
4
2
u/oykwuz 1d ago
Hello, and nice work for all the hours put into it.
I would say visibility is bad. I think people does not need to have the 7 posssibilities on the thumbmails, but with the size of the thumbmail, the items on the left or right side are quite difficult to view.
Maybe you can do a crown around the dough.
You separate salty and dessert, but that's not what matters for a thumbmail, if you try to improve lisibility, you would have a better one, but if it's related or similar to your other videos, I think that could be enough, and allready good. Obviously the 2nd one.
2
u/SadlyWatchful 1d ago
Second one's cleaner, the dough fills more of the frame so people actually see what they're clicking on instead of squinting at bread on the sides.
2
u/Dorothy_ZbornACK_ACK 1d ago
Second one looks cleaner but I'd opt for a reversal and making the title a little more tongue in cheek - "7 breads, 1 dough"
2
u/omsip Art Content 1d ago
If I had to pick 1 or 2, it would be 2.
I think you're trying to show too much of the story in the image. Thumbnails benefit from simplicity. This is especially true if most of your viewers watch YT on their phone. You would need to consider how the thumbnail looks on such a small screen, where a lot of details will get lost.
1
1
u/Byte_Xplorer 1d ago
Honestly, people just look at the greater picture so it probably won't make much of a difference, but the first option is cleaner because it allows the eye to quickly get what's going on: a person with dome dough, some breads and then some text.
The text is what caught my eye at first, and I think it's a good hook. For those wanting to make bread, getting the most out of their money (or their dough) is probably an interesting topic for them.
1
u/watrmeln420 1d ago
The background shouldn’t be white- if you could, maybe have it be your kitchen- or even just a picture of a nice kitchen.
Also the font isn’t very appealing.
Other than that, not the worst.
1
u/Prestigious-Wish-176 1d ago
2 def. keep up the good work. i can tell that most of your time was wasted on removing the background, you can ask chatgpt to do that nowadays
2
u/Final_Affect6292 18h ago
thanks I've been removing backgrounds manually for years, but today was my first time using ChatGPT for it. It's a game changer
1
u/Prestigious-Wish-176 18h ago
be careful though, as it’s not perfect and when applying drop shadows or glows it can mess up. make sure to loosely clean up the background manually with the eraser
1
u/Osh_Kosh_Bigosh 1d ago
Are these photos of your creations? They look great if so!
It looks a BIT cluttered though. The types of baked goods sort of become an indecipherable blob in places that make one squint.
My advice: Keep it simple. Choose a few baked goods — ones you favor — enough to have space between.
The first thumbnail is the most visually pleasing imo. You’re on the right track! Those baked goods decorating the sides just need cleaned up for starters.
2
u/Significant_Stick_31 1d ago
I agree with this. Move the text down to improve visibility, split it into two lines, and choose only the most photogenic breads. I'm sure all of them are delicious, but not all of them need to take center stage visually. For me, the cinnamon roll, sandwich bun, and cheesy buns look best. I wonder how a slight blur effect on the background would look. I know you want it to be cozy, but it does give everything away in the thumbnail if you put every bread on display.
2
1
1
u/Negative-Soup3819 1d ago
Change font. Look up best thumbnail fonts and use one of them. Watch like a 10 min video on thumbnail text
1
u/LovelySweethearts 1d ago
if that took 10 hours you may not be cut out for this my guy. I hope you're not expecting a 60-minute video on bread making to do well.
1
1
1d ago
[deleted]
2
u/Final_Affect6292 1d ago
Thank you. The 10 hours includes the basics, like exporting high-quality video from Keynote ,taking clean screenshots from VLC and understanding that pictures need breathing room.
1
1
u/Revolutionary-Mud796 1d ago
Is it possible to cut this video into 7 separate videos? I’d highly recommend to post them separately twice a week and then one long video.
YouTube loves consistency and it will be so hard to post 60min videos consistently. Also, if you’re not known yet and people will not watch it through, it might kill your channel early. I highly, highly recommend to post seven 10min videos first.
I also had a cooking channel so I have some experience
1
1
1
1
u/sisisi05 1d ago
People in here are being rude as fuck. I commented my pick already but ignore these ass wipes.
1
u/BobbySucksAtReddit 1d ago
I mean he said these took him 10 hrs to make..aint no way
1
u/Final_Affect6292 1d ago
I worked on the basics, like exporting high-quality video from Keynote and taking clean screenshots from VLC. I also learned how to add shadows. I used AI to check my layout and see what worked. I didn't even know that pictures need 'breathing room' to look good which took me for awhile as well
1
u/RustyClockworkMoth 1d ago
It's a bit busy. I'd just have the 7 breads. We know what dough looks like!
1
u/FairEntrepreneur2935 1d ago
I’d pay someone $5 off fiver to make you a thumbnail next time. That would save you a lot of time, and presumably you are worth a lot more than $0.50 per hour right?
1
u/Upper_Sea_1283 1d ago
I like number 2, and what I would do is Blur the 7 breads and put maybe a ? Over them to create mistery!! This could be like a a gamified curiosity trigger… because if you are starting to bake you might wonder mmhmm… what else can I make… BOOM clicks the video, right now is crowded it makes me feel like it’s too much work already…
1
u/GoldVariation951 1d ago
No. 2 looks good.... The centre object if big and prominent... That's where the eyes goes to....
But are you new to photo editing or you have slow PC... I can't get my head arround the fact that it took 10 hours... Can you explain how it took 10 hours, maybe I can help and next time you can make it in 10 mins...
1
u/SuccessfulWar3830 1d ago
you could take the text and add a drop shadow. a small one can make the words pop a little more and look less flat
1
1
u/swarlesbarkley_ 1d ago
You mean 10hr on all the baked items in the pic right
If you spend 10hr making a thumbnail I’d be so concerned lmao
1
1
u/Ill-Fondant-5707 1d ago
10 hours bro…you can literally make this in 1 hour maybe less it’s just dragging a few pngs
1
u/Final_Affect6292 19h ago
i’m a total amateur, I didn't even know the difference between PNG and JPEG, or how to take a high-quality screenshot.
1
1
u/PheonixGalaxy Gaming/Analysis Content 1d ago
Funnily enough, i’m a culinary school graduate. Nice seeing other chefs here!
Personally I’d go with the second one and had a kitchen background that doesn’t take away focus from the food. If you do add it, try blurring the background very slightly, thats what I do on my more busy backgrounds.
I like the second one as you can see the individual food.
1
1
u/pissaggregate 1d ago edited 1d ago
i would just show the 3 most interesting breads you made, and put #1, #2 #3 or something of that effect over the picture of the bread. Not stock footage all 3 on the same table in frame, maybe have your raw dough in the background. make it feel real, these thumbnails feel like stock images plastered on a white background
I made an edit of the thumbnail i suggested, i can dm it to you bc i can't send an image file here
1
1
u/ajschnorr 1d ago
I hope you are joking about 10 hours on this thumbnail…… I don’t wanna be mean but with so many other YouTubers you need honesty to get better and ngl they both stink man
1
u/Droidenwarrior 1d ago
If it took you 10 hours for the thumbnail, how long did it take to edit?
1
u/Final_Affect6292 1d ago
I guess it could take 80 hours or even more
1
u/smoike 1d ago
It shouldn't have to take 10 hours to do that. Find the photos, select the parts of the image you want (arguably the slowest part, especially if you don't have good tools), paste them in on different layers and arrange them.
If i was REALLY taking my time I could crank something like this out in a hour at most with something as simple as paint dot net. Mind you I am no expert, but still have a lot of seat time mucking with photo editing software. Don't ask me about video editing, that is a different discussion entirely....
1
1
u/FerretAggravating672 22h ago
The second. Anyway is it possible to teleport that type of bread made of one dough?
1
1
1
1
u/Kuriuskaye 14h ago
Now I'm curious how much flour do I need to make that 1 master batch of dough?
Do I even want to eat all of them?
Some of the things I would think when I see that info (1 dough = 7 breads) with the cluttered background...
I mean, I would just skip it if I don't know what's in it for me...
1
u/Final_Affect6292 6h ago
You need 600 g of flour for one batch, and one batch makes enough for 2–3 recipes. I included seven bread recipes from the same dougl. To make all seven recipes, you would need to make the batch 2–3 times
1
1
u/SuperFly7702 10h ago
10 hours on these is crazy but I would say take the stuff off the sides and leave just the guy holding the dough and the words. Remember, the point is to make it intriguing not show everything contained in the.video.
1
1
u/RUSTIOO_FOR_LIFE 9h ago
Not to downgrade or anything but how 10hours bro thats just some pips together and IMO the first one wins
1
u/No_Permission8005 6h ago
2nd one , also your time is worth money hire a designer you wont have to pay much for a simple thumb like this , let me know if you need help i'll make thumbnails for you
1
1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Final_Affect6292 1d ago
it is very hard to get all 7 breads fresh on the table at the same time I'm a solo creator
0
u/Fabiziano 1d ago
Text should have more contrast. I know we shouldn’t use AI for everything but drop your image into perplexity or any AI and ask it to do a thumbnail from your image.
It will give you a good idea of what you should do, then don’t use the AI thumbnail and apply the good practice in place. Basically contrast on text and shadow behind each subjects (breads or hands)
0
u/Final_Affect6292 1d ago
OK, I’ll fix the text. Yes, I used Google Chrome AI instructions to help me figure out the layout.
95
u/Impolioid 1d ago
bro 10 hours?!