Use Canva To Make A YouTube Thumbnail On Your Phone

Let me show you how to make BETTER YouTube thumbnails- thumbnails people actually click on by just using your phone!

Thumbnails are such an important part of your YouTube videos. They're the things that entice people to click your videos and watch them. This means you want to make sure you're creating something that will stand out and look beautiful! This week, we're digging into how to use Canva on your phone to create gorgeous YouTube thumbnails.

Okay, so there are a few things you're going to need to follow along with this week's tutorial.

You're going to need...

• A Phone. Yep, since we're doing this on your phone, you're going to want to have your cell phone handy.

• The LightRoom App. This is a free app that you can use to edit your photos and make them look absolutely beautiful.

• The Canva App. This is the mobile version of the editing program that I always recommend!

Once you've downloaded your apps, it's time to get started!

The first thing you're going to want to do is take a few photos of yourself. You can see in the video above how I do this but you're literally going to take some selfies. Now it's important to remember to take these in landscape mode. This means, hold that phone horizontally. This will give you the wide image that you need to create a thumbnail.

Pro Tip: Don't be afraid to take a lot of photos of yourself! This gives you options to work with!

Awesome, now you have a photo to use in your thumbnail. You'll want to import that into your LightRoom app. If you watch the video above, I'll show you exactly how to do that.

In your LighRoom app, you'll apply a preset. If you didn't know, a preset is a quick edit you can do in LightRoom. You'll get presets from different places online and add them to your app. These presets will allow you to take your photos and apply quick edits to them to make them look amazing and stay cohesive in your branding images.

I got my presets from Cathryn Manning at the Content Bug but you can get them in so many other places!

Once you apply your preset, you may need to make some adjustments to make everything look just right. Again, you can see the full process in the video above.

After you finish your editing in LightRoom, export your photo to your camera roll and head to the Canva app.

In your Canva app, you'll be looking for a YouTube Thumbnail template. Any template will do. You can use the premade templates or you can go with a blank one. In the template, you'll opt to add a photo. This will be the photo that you just edited in LightRoom. 

Add the photo to your template and make sure it's sized to fit the template. Then you can add your text and any other images you want to make the thumbnail pop.

Once you're done, you'll have a gorgeous thumbnail for your Youtube video!