And the image window lets you preview (in real time) the thumbnail’s final look. Easy Thumbnails runs on XP / XP64 / Vista / Vista64 / Windows 7 or on Mac OS / Linux in conjunction with Wine Run Windows Applications on Linux (or Mac) With WINE Run Windows Applications on Linux (or Mac) With WINE Read More.
The first link doesn't mention a size at all, the other two both say 480x270. I think probably the 480x360 recommendation (if you're still seeing that somewhere) may have been left over from the days before the widescreen player became standard. On the basis that the thumbnail image is also used as the 'preview' image in the player itself before the video starts playing, I'd say if possible make it at least the same resolution as your video, as long as you can manage that without exceeding the file size limit. On the question of the ppi value to use, that's actually irrelevant for purely on-screen display, unless you're trying to use in your web page design length units like centimetres or inches. And if you're doing that, you need your head examined. Videoleadsonline 1/12/2010, 7:45 น.
@rewboss Zackary.R's initial post here shows 3 links, the bottom 2 are the same. I'd assume that was done to point out that the same help doc actually states 2 different sizes in the same post. The first menion of thumbnail size is point #3 where it is said to be 360x480. The second mention of thumbnail size is in the summary to the help post where it clearly mentions it should be 480x270. So it still is confusing as to the proper size for thumbnail images - as stated by YouTube documentation. As far as getting my head examined. Well I'm sure that needs to be done, but perhaps not for the reasons I ask about ppi.
I am simply trying to determine if there is an optimal way to get the best quality image used for a thumbnail. I can not tell if uploading at 360, 720, or 1080p makes any difference in thumbnail quality/clarity.
Can you shed any light on the topic? Rewboss 1/12/2010, 8:35 น. Ppi is relevant if, for example, you're printing something out, when ppi will get converted directly into dpi - 100 pixels at 96dpi is just slightly more than an inch, but 100 pixels at 300dpi is one third of an inch. On the screen, though, if your display resolution is 1366 in width, then 100 pixels is 1/367th of the width of the screen, no matter how big the pixels actually are. A thumbnail image is an image, and, like all images, while you can always very easily scale it down in size, you can't scale it up in size without a loss of quality. It makes sense, then, that you upload an image at the highest resolution possible. This might make almost no difference to the image quality of the small thumbnail itself, but if you embed the video externally, the first thing people will see is the thumbnail image at the size of the player itself.
![How To Make A Pic Smaller On Mac For Youtube Thumbnail How To Make A Pic Smaller On Mac For Youtube Thumbnail](http://bandicamformac.com/images/movavi/bandicam-for-mac-1_scr.png)
CaptRobLee 1/12/2010, 9:27 น. My question is less about understanding the relationship between pixels on screen vs. Print,but more in relationship to what does YouTube make when it makes a thumbnail & is there a difference in the quality of the thumbnail & possible embed image based on the quality of the video uploaded. Let's assume you have decent quality video.
Does the thumbnail look any better / cleaner if the video was uploaded as 1080p vs non-hd? And likewise will the still image shown as the video still on an embed be higher quality if the uploaded video was 1080p, or does the still image get reduced in quality to help speed up loading of the image? Zack.R 1/12/2010, 9:54 น. Videoleadsonline, if you're asking about the automatically generated thumbnails, you don't have a choice anyhow, so there's little point in worrying about it. The thumbnail is a 120x90px image, which is scaled up or down and cropped as needed in the browser itself for the different sizes of thumbnail actually displayed, but it's always the same image, and it's always 120x90px.
![Youtube Youtube](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/r-rnVgn6PO0/maxresdefault.jpg)
That's considerably smaller than the video, so it's going to be only a couple of kB in size, and will always (in its original size) look quite sharp even if the video is a bit blurry. The larger thumbnails will look less sharp because they're they same image but upscaled. The video embed image will be sharper and clearer the sharper your video is. Videoleadsonline 1/12/2010, 15:07 น.