YouTube Thumbnails

How it works

Brookwake writes your headline itself, as its own text layer, so it's always spelled exactly as you typed it, in your fonts, on any image model. The image model is asked for a picture with no words in it at all. Short headlines read best on a phone: 2 to 5 words.

Every set has three variants: words on the left, words on the right and words across the top. They export at the same size, so they're ready for YouTube's Test & Compare, which takes up to three thumbnails. Upload all three in YouTube Studio under Test & compare. It isn't available for Shorts or videos made for kids, and your channel must be verified.

Add your face from a photo or use one of your Characters. It's cut out once with Remove Background and placed in all three variants, never redrawn by the image model. Your own photo needs the face consent; photos of public figures are refused.

Each thumbnail downloads as a PNG at 3840 × 2160 for uploads from a computer, and as a JPEG under 2 MB for uploads from the YouTube app. Download the whole set as one zip.

When a picture is smaller than the frame, the editor offers Sharpen: Upscale enlarges it to4K and the thumbnail is rendered again. The headline, shapes and face are always sharp.

Shorts covers are 9:16. YouTube crops vertical covers to 4:5 in some places, so the words stay inside the middle 4:5 area, which the editor marks.

The editor shows each variant at 246 × 138 and 168 × 94, on light and dark backgrounds, and warns you when the headline may be too small or blend into the picture. The warnings never stop an export.

Editing is free: the words, fonts, colours, positions, crop and style. Every saved change is a version you can go back to, and any variant opens in Motion Studio. Exporting your edits again is a new render.

Premium through MCP: your own AI assistant can write the headline, make the three variants, edit them and export them, for the same credits as here. Its editing is free too.