The purpose of this article, while it will likely help with CTR, is to help you make your thumbnails appear as professional as possible. Turning your amateur thumbnails into ones that can compete with the top YouTubers. You might know stuff like using higher-quality images and minimizing text, so here are some other tips that can help you out.
When using the cut tool, it is very hard to make the image you're cutting still look smooth and not rough around the edges. That's why if you have to use it, take your time and be very careful. If you don’t have to use it (if taking a photo, minimize what needs to be cut out), then don’t, as you would then avoid this whole process. If you could use an AI tool to do whatever cut you needed, that could also be ideal.
Don’t just include things in your thumbnail out of laziness. That will very likely make your thumbnail look more amateurish. Also, don’t include anything unnecessary in your images. For example, let's say for a video about repairing Toyotas, you include an image of yourself holding a bottle of water in the thumbnail (note: in this case it would be fine to keep the background of your image, but ideally you would also take the image at a repair shop or at least by a Toyota). Unless the video has something to do with water, this would be unnecessary, and you should take another picture with you either holding nothing or holding a wrench or some other car repair tool.
Dark thumbnails are hard to see and look unedited. If you want professional-looking thumbnails, brighten up any images, and use vibrant colors when needed. Of course you can go overboard with this; don’t make an image pure white because you wanted to brighten it up, and don’t use mismatching colors because you thought they were the most vibrant colors you could find.
To make your thumbnails look more professional, use the cut tool as minimally as possible, don’t keep anything unnecessary in your thumbnails, and use bright and vibrant colors. If you want a thumbnail editor that can help you with these things, check ours out.