How to Make Thumbnails

Step-by-Step Guide

1. 1

   Step 1: Choose the photographs or other media you want to reduce to thumbnail pictures.

   Perform all edits, with the exception of sharpening, in your editing program before making the copy.
   
   Sharpening will be done after the size reduction. , Select "Filters" on your toolbar and choose the filter you want to apply from the dropdown menu or toolbar.
   
   This process will reduce or eliminate any graininess or other imperfections to the photograph before it is reduced to a thumbnail. , Use the cropping tool in your editing program and select the area you want to crop away.
   
   This could be empty spaces or irrelevant parts of the picture. , This can be done by choosing "Resize" from the edit dropdown menu or toolbar.
   
   Most programs will let you choose how you want the size reduced, either by pixels or percentages.
   
   Use whichever works best for your needs. , Saturation is the amount of color in the illustration.
   
   The colors stand out better with thumbnails if you increase saturation.
   
   You can do this by selecting "Colors" from the toolbar and select "Saturation" from the dropdown list. , You will find "Unsharp mask" in the "Filters" dropdown on the toolbar.
   
   Contradictory to what you might think, this tool will actually sharpen the image.
   
   This allows for sharper detail and will bring out artifacts in the thumbnail that might otherwise be missed. , This element is optional, but it will help your thumbnails stand out from the page.
   
   Border options can usually be found in the toolbar dropdown menu under "Select." Usually a black border is ideal, but experiment with other colors to find a suitable border. , The most universally recognized format to save any thumbnail is JPEG.
   
   Make sure that you set your quality high (80 percent or higher) so you do not lose the details in your thumbnail due to JPEG compression.
   
   Alternatively, you could use the PNG format, which saves the quality.
   
   It takes more room in your storage than JPEG, however.
2. 2

   Step 2: Use photo editing software to make a copy of the illustration.

3. 3

   Step 3: Apply a dust and scratch reducing filter or a strong blur filter to your illustration.

4. 4

   Step 4: Optimize the photo and crop it.

5. 5

   Step 5: Reduce the original picture size.

6. 6

   Step 6: Increase the saturation of the thumbnail.

7. 7

   Step 7: Apply a sharpening filter to the thumbnail.

8. 8

   Step 8: Add a border to the thumbnail.

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   Step 9: Save the image.

Detailed Guide

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