do you want to learn how to make

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thumbnails like phase phase reign vanoss
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ali-a PewDiePie skydoesminecraft and a
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bunch of other successful youtubers well
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you're in luck because today I'm going
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to be bringing you my Photoshop tutorial
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on how to create amazing YouTube
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thumbnails and likewise attract more
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viewers to your videos which will in
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turn help your channel grow so if we go
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over to YouTube we can see that in my
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sub box right now we have a multitude of
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different style thumbnails but don't
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worry because we're gonna be making
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something even better than every single
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thumbnail in this page right now I can
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guarantee you just watch the video and
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you're going to be learning how to make
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ridiculous thumbnails that will attract
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the viewers without a doubt so first I
Examples
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want to show you guys
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a few examples of what I'm talking about
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before we begin I wanted to let you guys
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know or show you I should say some of
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the thumbnails that I've made in the
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past and as you can see they're very
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eye-catching and they will definitely
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like I said before attract more viewers
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to your videos I've created thumbnails
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for elevate Nick at night which is a
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clash Royale youtuber I've created
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thumbnails for the red reserve in the
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past and a bunch of other channels and
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if you want proof I can leave a link to
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those channels in the description below
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if you want I just leave it in the
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comment section I'm sure I can get some
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of those channels in the description for
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you for proof but either way as you can
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see I'm gonna be showing you how to make
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thumbnails like these and it's really
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not that hard so let's go into Photoshop
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and I'm going to be giving you the
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dimensions right now so all we have to
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do is go to file new and I have a
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template set up called thumbnail but you
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can just copy these settings right here
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with is 1280 height is 720 and I like to
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keep the resolution at 72 and you can
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just copy the rest of the settings if
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they aren't already default for you so
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just press ok and we will be granted a
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white blank page and we're going to be
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making this the awesome looking
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thumbnail like I showed you before so
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what we need to do is create a new layer
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and before anything else we are going to
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be going to get a background so here we
Background
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are in Chrome and we are going to be
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getting a background for our thumbnails
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now it doesn't have to be anything
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special I'm just current
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going to use an overwatch background
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just because I feel like it so overwatch
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matte background HD and you can do the
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exact same thing if you really want to
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copy but obviously one have the
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background pertaining to the game you're
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playing so I'm just going to copy this
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right now making sure it's HD and if you
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don't know what that is it's
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high-definition so when we paste it
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pressing control V into Photoshop it's
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HD and it's not going to show up as a
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super small image like this because when
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we stretch it out it's going to be
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really ugly again make sure it's HD and
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here we go now we're just going to
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resize it to make sure it fits the
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entire page and we can just drag these
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little bars and there we go we have our
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background so now that we have our
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background into Photoshop what we can do
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now is press ctrl + M on our keyboard
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opening up the curves panel and what you
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can do from this screen is change the
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curves to add a bit of contrast so what
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we can do is drag the bottom bit
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following my mouse cursor right now drag
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the bottom bit down a little bit and
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drag this top bit up and as you can see
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it creates a nice little contrast in the
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background and overall makes the
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thumbnail look much better in my opinion
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now this next part is extremely
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essential in my opinion in creating more
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of a popping text even though we're not
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even adding the text yet but what we can
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do is create a new layer by going to
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this new layer tab at the very bottom
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going to our brush tool and then
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selecting white as the color if it's not
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already default and it should bring you
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a brush like this also one thing I
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forgot to mention is we can go up to
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this little tab right here and make sure
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if the brushes would load because I have
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so many brushes in Photoshop might take
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a little while but make sure the
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hardness is at 0% this is very important
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and in ways we can back out of that now
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go to the very top of the page and press
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down on your mouse and it should create
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this light but I don't even know how to
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call it's a light it's basically a light
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guys that's all it is
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it's really simple and as you can see it
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brightens up the very top and it will
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create a bit of depth in the thumbnail
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later on when we start adding more
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effects so now that we have that I'm
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going to rename this to light because
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it's a
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hard to see and then I'm creating
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another layer and going to drag it down
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underneath the light layer and I'm going
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to go to my colors and I'm going to
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change it to black instead of white and
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we are going to be doing the exact same
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thing go to your brush tool but instead
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of going to the very top this time what
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we're going to be doing is we're going
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to be dragging down on the sides to
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create this nice little shadow and we're
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going to be doing it on the left side as
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well and on the bottom just a little bit
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beautiful just like that and as you can
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see it creates a nice little shadow and
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it might be a little bit too much and
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that's completely ok all we have to do
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is change the layer styles by double
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clicking on the layer and changing the
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opacity to maybe about 50 anywhere
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between 20 and 50% should be completely
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fine and it would look exactly like this
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and like I said if we toggle the layer
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off it doesn't look as good so we just
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improve the background tenfold in my
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opinion but now it's time to add some
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text so the very first thing that we
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need to do is again create a new layer
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and I'm actually going to drag this
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underneath the light so that the light
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is above the text we always want to have
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that make sure the light is above the
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text and we can go to our text tool and
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you can change the font to whatever you
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want but for this purpose I'm going to
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be using big noodle titling if you don't
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have the font I'm going to be leaving a
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link to the font in the description and
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all you have to do is download and
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install the font you can just search it
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up and it should be there and I'm going
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to go to my color and I'm going to
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change to white just to start off we're
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going to be changing it in a bit but
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yeah so we're going to click and we can
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type whatever we want so for the purpose
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of this video I'm just going to be
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writing tutorial and click the check
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mark for okay ctrl T drag with your alt
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and shift with the diagonal to make a
Centering
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bigger and centered I know it's a lot of
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information once you learn this stuff
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it's going to be extremely simple and is
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going to be like the back of your hand
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we're making thumbnails and it's just
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going to make your life a bit easier so
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now that we have that and you might be
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wondering why we have an italicized
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effect on it if you don't know what a
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knight Alice
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effect is it's making it slanted like
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this so in order to get that effect all
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we have to do is go to our character
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options on this little side panel and
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check this little slanted tee and it
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will be all good all right so now that
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we have that done I'm going to be
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creating another layer by pressing ctrl
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J which will create a copy of the
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tutorial text with my move tool I'm
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going to switch to that I'm going to be
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dragging down holding shift selecting
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both of these layers continuously
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holding shift and clicking on the
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thumbnails drag them into the center to
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Center them and on the bottom layer not
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holding shift this time because we only
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want to select that layer I'm going to
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be changing this to YouTube I can spell
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YouTube oh my gosh okay so click the
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check mark again and then press ctrl T
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again to transform holding alt and shift
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at the very top corner drag and make it
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a bit smaller so this little text effect
Text Effect
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I'm going to be adding isn't a necessity
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for everyone but I think it's going to
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make a big difference in this thumbnail
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and you can use it exactly how I use it
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if you want just watch so I've already
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created another layer here and we're
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going to be going to our shape tool at
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the very bottom and if you don't have
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this rectangle one selected all you have
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to do is right-click and select
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rectangle now all you have to do now is
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drag out a rectangle holding the mouse
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button to basically surround the smaller
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text like that and even though it's
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white we're going to be doing is
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changing the color right now to a red
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just so we can see it there we go and we
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can see that YouTube is on top of it now
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now what we need to do now is Center the
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YouTube on the rectangle and to do this
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all we need to do is press ctrl and
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click on the thumbnail of YouTube go to
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the rectangle make sure it's selected go
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to the move tool and at this very top
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you should see these little controls
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right here
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click the two middle ones and it will
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Center this box with the YouTube now
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what we need to do is press ctrl and
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click on the YouTube thumbnail so it
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will select the entire layer
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go back to a rectangle select that make
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sure that layer is selected and press
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Delete and what that does is it creates
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this little cool effect it deletes the
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text on the rectangle and it makes this
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nice little effect now I don't want this
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to be red so all we have to do is go
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back to our layer styles and exit this
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color overlay go to gradient overlay and
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this is the gradient that a lot of
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people using their thumbnails it's like
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this yellowish orange and it really
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drags up the attention of viewers for
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whatever reason that just jumps out at
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you so we're going to select that and if
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you don't have this gradient it's really
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easy to make and after that I'm going to
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be adding one extra effect called inner
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glow and what this does is we can change
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actually one second before I show you
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the effect change the blend mode from
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linear dodge add to overlay and as you
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can see all it really does is create a
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nice little outline on the box or
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whatever you want to call it and it just
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adds to the depth of the text so now
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that we have that done what we can do is
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right-click on this rectangle and we can
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go to rasterize layer' and it will
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create all of the effects and merge it
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onto the layer that we just made so now
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we have that now it's going to be time
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to edit the tutorial text and I'm not
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going to be doing a whole lot for this
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just adding a gradient overlay like
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before and of course a custom one and
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that's pretty much it just changing the
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opacity to this and if you want to
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create it
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here is a quick limps there we go and
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change the opacity to about 24 click OK
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and now we have that cool so now we have
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the text done and that's the that's the
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main thing like that's honestly the real
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reason why people want to click in your
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video because of the text now it doesn't
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really stand out now that's the only
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issue so all we have to do is merge
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these two layers again by clicking shift
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and clicking both of them at the same
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time go to rasterize type merge layers
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just like this and actually one thing
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I'm going to be doing is making sure
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that the tutorial text is centered so
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you shouldn't have to do this for the
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most
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our one second let me just fix this
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whatever you're designing there's going
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to be things that come up that aren't
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exactly perfect and you just have to fix
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them and roll with it it's super easy to
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fix when you know what you're doing but
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when you don't know you're doing it can
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be a little bit challenging either way
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I'm just fixing this right now just so
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it will look a bit better sorry if I'm
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wasting your time guys I apologize but
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now we're going to be merging the layers
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for real this time
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and adding a drop shadow now copy the
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settings I'm about to put on right now
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because these are the ones that are
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going to get you the best effect in my
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opinion so turn up the distance ad size
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just like that click okay rasterize
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layer' go back do the exact same thing
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just like so it doesn't have to be exact
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every time just so you get the same
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relative effect go back into the exact
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same thing again beautiful and now we
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have a real good drop shadow effect on
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the text and it stands out as you can
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see now I'm going to be adding one more
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thing to the background so we can create
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a new layer above the background go back
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to our brush tool again make sure the
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hardness is at 0% go to our color but
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this time we're going to be adding a bit
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of a blue if you don't know what this is
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it just really creates a better effect
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on the background if I can explain it
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any other way I would but that's
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basically all it is so now we have our
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brush and we're going to cover the
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entire background now once we finish
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that we're going to click and change the
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blend mode to overlay change the opacity
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to about 30 go back to our background
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press control and you change the
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saturation to maybe negative 10
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there we go and there we have it it just
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creates a nice little effect I don't
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know what it is I like to use it on my
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thumbnails you don't have to use it on
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yours if you don't want to but that's
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just how I roll
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one more thing we're going to be adding
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is a border and if you don't know what
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that is it's just basically some lines
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so create
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new layer go into your gradient select
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the entire page and just drag double
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click on the layer change the fill
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opacity to zero go to outer glow change
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the size all the way to like mid way go
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to drop shadow and do the same effect
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that we did for the other one beautiful
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press ctrl T go to these sides and drag
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out like so here we go this takes a
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little while it can be a little tedious
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each time it doesn't really have to be
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perfect either because most people are
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just really not going to care so as long
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as it's a few pixels together it should
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be completely fine no worries and there
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we go it has a nice little border to it
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now one extra effect is going to be
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another inner glow like we did to the
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text go to overlay and there we have it
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so that's pretty much it guys I hope you
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enjoyed this tutorial it's not really
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that advanced if you want to see an
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advanced thumbnail tutorial let me know
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definitely in the comments below
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and I smash that like button because
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that will let me know that you want to
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see more Photoshop tutorials good luck
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with your channels good luck making
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thumbnails I hope this video helps you
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peace out