---
title: 'How to Fix Your Face for YouTube Thumbnails'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=2CDOsfNd2qM'
video_id: '2CDOsfNd2qM'
date: 2026-08-04
duration_sec: 1463
---

# How to Fix Your Face for YouTube Thumbnails

> Source: [How to Fix Your Face for YouTube Thumbnails](https://youtube.com/watch?v=2CDOsfNd2qM)

## Summary

This video demonstrates a comprehensive Photoshop workflow for enhancing a portrait photo to be used as a YouTube thumbnail. The creator, Nick, shows how to brighten the image, correct skin tones, remove blemishes, enhance the eyes, and sharpen the final result, all while maintaining a natural look.

### Key Points

- **Introduction and Goal** [00:00] — The video aims to transform a dark, unflattering image into a brighter, cleaner version for YouTube thumbnails, making the creator look their best.
- **Rule of Thirds for Thumbnails** [00:45] — Emphasizes the importance of composition in thumbnails, using the rule of thirds to place the subject's eyes or main focal points along grid lines for balance.
- **Adjusting Levels for Brightness** [02:16] — Uses Image > Adjustments > Levels to brighten the image, adjusting shadows, midtones, and highlights to bring out detail without blowing out edges.
- **Enhancing Vibrance and Saturation** [03:39] — Adds Vibrance and Saturation adjustment layers to restore color and make skin tones pop, being careful not to overdo it.
- **Flattening Layers** [04:25] — Selects all layers, duplicates them, and merges (Ctrl+E) to create a single layer for further editing, noting this becomes destructive.
- **Using PortraitPro Plugin** [05:00] — Applies the PortraitPro plugin to smooth skin and remove small imperfections, using a beauty filter effect.
- **Healing Brush for Blemishes** [06:52] — Uses the Healing Brush tool on a new layer to remove freckles, lines, and other blemishes by sampling nearby skin areas.
- **Clone Tool for Lightening** [10:18] — Uses the Clone Stamp tool with low opacity (around 17%) to lighten specific areas like under-eye circles and nose highlights.
- **Enhancing Eyes with Levels and Masking** [16:31] — Duplicates the layer, applies Levels to brighten the eyes, then uses a layer mask to paint the effect only on the eyes.
- **Dodge and Burn for Eye Color** [19:07] — Uses Dodge and Burn tools to add contrast and color back into the eyes, making them stand out.
- **Resizing and Sharpening** [21:44] — Resizes the image to 1920x1080 (for a 19:20 thumbnail) and applies Unsharp Mask to add detail back, especially to the beard and eyes.
- **Final Vibrance Boost** [23:35] — Adds a final Vibrance adjustment to enhance skin tones, resulting in a professional, polished thumbnail.

### Conclusion

The video provides a step-by-step Photoshop workflow for creating a flattering YouTube thumbnail, emphasizing non-destructive editing, careful use of tools, and a balance between enhancement and realism.

## Transcript

good I'm going to show you how to take an image that looks like this where it's  dark you have a lot of things that you maybe would want to fix up and it's not  that flattering to looking like this where it's brighter the skin tones are 
of a distraction cleaned up some blemishes and more to make my thumbnails  represent me in the best possible way this process also helps my thumbnail  to learn in this video you going to apply to pretty much any image editing 
software but for this video I'm going to be using Photoshop because it's what I'm  is Nick if you want to learn how to grow your channel make videos and all types  of other YouTube related stuff start now by subscribing now let's hop on the 
kind of the framing in here anyway now keep in mind all this is going to get  cut out here of the back so it's just going to be me you know right here like  this but um one of the things that's important when you're making thumbnails 
is to make sure that you do have placement of things in a right way and  the reason for this is it makes everything feel balanced so if you look  different frames this is based on the rule of thirds um you can find out more 
it but basically the whole idea is you divide your screen into nine equal parts  then you try to put your eyes um or the main subject within these lines 
here for the second thumbnail that I'm doing so you can see here the hands are  just a little bit too far in but it's okay I might leave them as they are um  as long as it gets the idea acrossed and I've got some spacing problems over here 
with the eyes I still have it balanced right here on this particular line so I  important part of it but I'm probably going to roll with this one um but but  the background so you can just see the difference that is being made once all 
this is done but uh I'm going to turn these guides off here because they are  not crucial to what it is that uh that we're doing right now and I'm going to  my wide screen but if you go up to the top menu and you go up to image and then 
down to adjustments you're going to see an option for levels if I click on that  it's going to bring up a little dialogue box or I can move this up down here and  here I can click on this little option down here and I can add adjustment 
layers for different things like uh you know like Hue and saturation Vibrance  levels and all of that here as well um me personally just because when I first  started learning this I always go up into the top menu for it but for your 
non-destructive but with this particular box let me make it bigger here for you  what this is doing is this is showing me the light and dark areas of the 
thumbnail so if I grab this over here if if you look at the image you can see how  it's making it brighter so what I want to do is I want to take it to where it's  bright but not too bright that it's going to blow out this Edge over here so 
the midtones and I'm going to raise them up and you can see right out of the gate  it's kind of taking away some of my color but it's bringing out a lot of the 
image right so it's giving me a lot more to work with and then on once that is up  I can come back over to the bright side and then just maybe that up just a  a little bit and then that's that for lightening it up so the next thing I'll 
do is I will go into that same area and then here I'll put it on Vibrance now  with Vibrance this is another one where it's really easy to overdo as you can  see right there but it brings color back into the image and it makes everything 
turn this up and I'm just going to eyeball it you know until I'm like yeah  that that looks you know pretty good for what it is that I'm trying to do in this  back that off a smidge I'm going to bring up General saturation which does a 
similar similar thing so now we've got my skin tones back and if we look at the  version that I'm working on compared to the original you can see already just  the huge difference this is making so now that we have those what I'm going to 
do is I'm going to select them all and then I'm going to duplicate the layers  and I'm just going to smash them by hitting CR e and then that just combines  work on there now just the heads up as soon as I do that it becomes destructive 
I would need to go back in and then you know kind of build everything out again  but it's just the way that I work so now I'm going to zoom in and we're going to  spots and just like little details and stuff like that on my face um I'm going 
to remove those using a plugin that I have called portrait 4 and when this  pops up the name of it is right up here at the top so what's cool about this is  let me just zoom in here to 100% is if you look at these lines on my head and 
just kind of look around everything here going to take this take it back to  default you can see when I press I'm not sure how well this is going to come  through with the internet compression you can see when I press on this how it 
beauty filter of sorts on my skin and it removes all those little tiny details so  the next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to sharpen this a little bit so it 
starts to bring in some of those details not too  much there we go and then you can see especially in areas like this where it  really you know Blends things nicely now what's cool when it comes to this is I 
can also ey drop specific areas so if I zoom out on this and I say okay uh let's  do this area then you can see here it's selecting my skin tones in this area to 
work with right so then that way it ensures that I'm putting this filter on  doing you know it might end up on another area sometimes maybe you run it 
through a couple times just to make it you know look a little bit better so  right out of the gate what this has done  is it's it's taken the image and it's given me a version to where I just don't 
have as much of that stuff happening um happening in my head right so it just  Smooths me out there just a little bit now we're going to work on these um the  the lines underneath and just some of the other imperfections on my face so 
click on the plus icon here to create an additional layer then I'm going to make  selected when I select my heel tool now on the heel tool I'm doing the healing 
brush tool so that I can sample areas and then with this what I'm going  to do is I'm making this about the size of this Mark right here that I'm trying  to take off it's like a freckle and then I'm just going to quickly go through and 
or that I just don't like you know when I'm looking at it and keep in mind this  now but this is working on a 4K canvas so when it's all said and done then you 
know the it's actually going to be you know about that size but I'm just  working on it big so that I can make sure that I get everything taken care of  so that when I make it small again um everything comes out looking nice and 
good then what I'm doing is I'm just you know kind of rinsing repeating going  through straightening up any lines that look weird using this and I just keep 
okay and then the bonus of this is let's say that I overdo it like I just did  can just take that area out and kind of do it all again and then 
anything that's obviously crazy anything that uh that I want to remove and we're  taking away anything that kind of takes away from the image or it's a 
distraction or like I said before things that I just don't like okay so for this  one um one of the things I'm getting ready to do here is this spot right here  in my mouth I just don't like how that looks so I'm going to do the same thing 
here I just go there bam now it's gone and in  there that was a bit much so I'm going to sample here put it 
right there bam things that you don't see when it comes to the actual  thumbnail itself it looks like it got a little bit of hair sticking out there  I'll lighten this up a little bit later to make the eyebrows a little bit uh 
more even then  so buckle in I'm sure you saw the time stamp Tak it off some of these things 
make it a little bit easier later and you'll see what I mean by that here in  just a second so some of these lines right I'm not trying to look like a like  a like I'm completely filtered out right I got to have some type of realism in 
here um but I am you know just trying to match colors up and that sort of thing  here so that uh uh everything just looks a little better okay we're going to 
lighten that so so  far you can see all the things that we've pulled away there now what I'm  going to do is I'm going to duplicate this I'm just going to hit e to compress 
it all then now we're going to go um I created another one of those layers and  then I'm now going to go over to the Clone tool and then I also need to make  sure that this is current below and and for this I'm actually going to take the 
opacity down quite a bit like let's say maybe  17 sometimes it'll be 10 sometimes it'll be you know 20 it just kind of depends  on exactly what I'm trying to do um but in this particular case I'm going to go 
and just kind of lighten up some things so for this right I'm just going to I'm  sampling up here and then I'm just using that to lighten up that spot in my nose  difference when I turn it on and off but when it comes to the thumbnails um these 
things are things that don't get recognized um I'm going to shrink this  down here a little bit going to lighten this air up right 
here as I'm working on this what I'm going to end up doing is I'm also going  to run this filter again the portor filter once we get all this stuff done  and it just gives it like another one off for you know just kind of making 
natural and I'm going to have another layer going to lighten up this stuff  just a little bit from my glasses there still there we're not totally removing 
can kind of reel it back in it's the advantage of you know  working in the layers there where it's non non-destructive like that right so 
out right so here hard Shadow here it looks more diffused right and then I'm 
going to rinse and repeat that for my eyes as well and I'm creating new layers  for all of these things so I can you know make adjustments if I need to per  layer here coming in matching some color and I'm going to lighten up under 
be so I'm doing that with all of this and another thing too is you can go 
extreme with this and then just back it off a little bit so that's another  advantage of working in the layers like that and doing it in the non-destructive  way because you know as I build this around when I zoom out it's probably 
layers I can come in here and I can pull it back you know a little bit if it's  too ridiculous let me zoom out and I'm going to do 
that I'm just making these quick notes on the  layer going do the same thing over here we're all we on matching color for 
skin tone lightening things up a bit trying to hide the circles under my eyes  and you know all that stuff just trying to make things 
blend bit better light coming 
there do a little bit of this right underneath this eye  too you can see the big difference this has made over 
here and again you know you got to be really careful because some of these  things like if you get carried away then it makes it look fake and you 
want it to look good but not too overly  fake do that and I'm going to back it off just a little bit so all that's  still there I think left eye is probably okay but we're just going to zoom out 
here and just take a quick look okay so we're getting there not uh  there and if we were to do these together you can just see the difference 
that that makes and once it's Blended in the other tool it's going to be an even  I'm going to build on top of it now that I've kind of backed those off a little  bit for this going to zoom out just a little make the brush a little 
smaller working on some of these areas that I might have  overlooked because I was zoomed in another thing too when you're doing 
this is make sure that brush is um as soft as you can make it because you want  together a little bit there's another tool that I used to 
use for this too called uh rad Labs or totally rad but  anymore which kind of sucks um let's see here Okay so we've 
there so it doesn't look totally unnatural so then so far this is where  we're at pretty big difference right pretty crazy so what I'm going to 
do now going to take all of these do that  same exact thing where I duplicate and then I'm just going to crush them  together I just kind of know where I'm at pull this out 
and then next we are going to do the eyes now the eyes are fun because with  the eyes we actually paint them in so here what I'm going to do um is I  duplicated the layer and then I'm going to mask this layer currently um you can 
see everything and that's perfectly fine it's what we want um so the next thing  I'm going to do is I'm going to go back into the adjustments and then into the  levels again and here oops sorry I did it on the 
actual mask and not the image so adjustments levels and then here bring  those eyes up even more and again we can tone these down 
too if we need to later okay and then now I'm going to  click on the layer mask and I'm going to go up to the paint bucket confirm the  mask is selected and then I'm going to paint that off click on The Mask again 
and now I have the paintbrush where I can zoom  in and then change this back to white white 
means show it black means do not show it then I'm going to paint in my  eyes another thing you can do before you do this or you can do it in the process 
is if you have like lines in your eye eyes or you know your eyes are bloodshot  adjustments like how this is getting a little pink here I might clone that I'm 
out now some content creators will leave the extreme version like this sometimes 
I will too but I try not to make it you know too crazy so I'll tone it back just  a little bit which it looks like in this case is right around  65% then if I turn it on and off you can see how it just brings my eyes to life 
there now the next thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to duplicate this  again and then which you can see also added you know a little bit of  brightness there um again so what I'm going to do actually you know what I'm 
not let me delete this and I'll just duplicate  this turn this off then I will rasterize this okay now that we've got that next 
thing I'm going to do is I'm going to do another layer here and I'm going to go  to the burn tool I actually have to do this on the the layer I'm go to the go  to the Dodge and burn tool the cool thing with this with these particular 
tools is they help you bring color back you can see right there right added some  color back into my eye and then when I take the other option and I go to the 
Dodge side then here it just creates some like contrast  there in my eyes right so then now we bring it back 
you can see how much the eyes stand out compared  to yeah when it's down there compared to what it was  before right and I think it's still a bit much so because of that I'm going to 
bit because I want nice and bright but not you know not too 
crazy so then now I'm going to duplicate this  again make sure that this is yep okay so I'm going to duplicate this again and 
I'm going to smash those together and then now so far if I turn off all of  these other ones down here you can see the huge  difference that's being made between these two these two things so the next 
thing I'm going to do is I'm going to go back up into my filter and I'm going to  go back into that portrait plugin again and then going to zoom  in I'm going to run it one more time and by doing that I'm going to take the 
minute bump it up just a smidge there now you know what I'll just do it  on Photoshop but you can see here now we've 
default um is I'm actually going to pull this  back just a little bit because it's a little bit 
much there we go I'm going to hit  okay and it just gave me a new layer for that next thing I'm going to 
do is I'm going to go up to well next thing I'm going to do actually is I'm  going to resize this so since this is going to be a 19 by 20 image and in that  particular case because it's currently 4 4K and take it down to 
1920 and then we're going to see the real size and this is when we  sharpen okay so this is the full sizee thumbnail  now and then we are going to go up to filter and then sharpen unsharp 
mask and then here we add detail back to  it and how this works in Photoshop is like you can uh just click on this up 
here and then it just kind of shows you the the difference being made and this  one's you have to be really careful here um because with  this it's really easy to redo it but this is where you know we bring like the 
the beard back in and that kind of stuff and pull it back even  more okay so that is nice and crisp so now just to avoid any issues I'm going 
to duplicate it one more time and then now we are going to uh go up into the  sharpen tool now with this one um this is also  one to where I don't want it to be too crazy but I'm going to just brush over 
my beard real quick right because that hair kind of  stands out I'm G to tap on my eyes real quick that should be good there  just a little bit of extra 
there but um here I'm going to pull up the vibrant scale again and I'm just  going to bump it up just a just a little bit more again you know we're not trying 
to be too crazy but I do want it to you know have good skin tones so if you look  at the difference between the two when I toggle them on and off it's a pretty  extreme difference between the two and just kind of helps them you know look 
professional makes me look better you know and all of that it's pretty crazy  work if you want to see some of the other skills that you need to work on to 
help you thrive this year on YouTube click into this video right here right  now thank you so much for watching I'll see you in the next video