Making thumbnails

My hours this semester came mostly from staying after school to film. I went to swim events after school such as a practice and a meet. Making a new preset for the YouTube thumbnails was one of my most exciting projects starting the year off. Last year I used the whole masthead as the marker in our thumbnails but this year, with the way it is designed, it didn’t work out the same. Instead, I decided to use just the “M” in The Muse because it is aesthetically pleasing and I can increase the size of it on the images, making the watermark stand out more. To make sure this design remained consistent throughout the many videos in the future, I created a photoshop template on my computer. This has the exact color, size, and placement of the “M” precisely where I placed it initially. It also includes filter options for the photos so I can make them pop-out more on the webpage. This includes boosting saturation, increasing sharpness, and lowering exposure for white footage so the “M” will stand out. The great thing about this template is that it makes the uploading process so much easier because I don’t have to fiddle around and try to make every other thumbnail look similar. Overall, it makes the YouTube channel look very professional and helps viewers differentiate from this year’s content and last year’s. One struggle I face, or will face rather, is showing other people how to make the thumbnails and still having them look consistent. This can be solved next year by showing the next editor exactly how to do it as well as showing Sebastian.