How To Make Amazing Thumbnails FAST & Easy

Someone told Alston his thumbnails needed work. He agreed without pushback. An 11% click-through rate is actually strong by YouTube standards, and whatever that thumbnail was doing, it was doing something right. Then a second commenter said they flat-out did not believe the number was real. So Alston recorded a YouTube Short, opened YouTube Analytics live on screen, and showed the rate sitting at 10.3% at the time of filming. A fourth person then asked the only logical next question: “Can you show me how you make your thumbnails?” This post is that answer.

The industry average CTR on YouTube thumbnails sits around 3%. Alston’s thumbnails average 7-8%. One hit 10.3%. The difference is not a professional camera, not a studio, and not a Photoshop subscription. It is a repeatable two-tool process built around one idea called the Bold Claim. Everything below is pulled directly from his walkthrough, step by step.

What You’ll Walk Out With

Why a 10.3% CTR started a comment section debate — and what those numbers actually mean
The two tools Alston uses to edit thumbnails, both one-time charges with zero monthly fees
Every Luminar AI face setting he adjusts and roughly how far to push each slider
How to isolate yourself from the background and swap shirt color in Affinity Photo
The Bold Claim rule and the BENS framework used by top thumbnail creators
The exact background color code, font, and glow technique Alston uses on every thumbnail
Why some thumbnails miss — and how to test your way to one that works
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The 10.3% Click-Through Rate That Started Everything

Context matters here. YouTube considers a 2-5% CTR to be average for most channels. Anything above 5% is strong. Hitting double digits on a published video is genuinely uncommon, which is why two separate people responded with skepticism when Alston mentioned it in the comments. His honest reaction to the first person was simple: “You’re right, 11% is actually horrible” — said sarcastically, because he knew the number was good. But when the second commenter said they did not believe it, he did the only thing that closes that kind of argument. He showed the screen.

The Short he posted displayed YouTube Studio analytics, with the click-through rate at 10.3% for that video at that point in time. It was not a cherry-picked screenshot. It was a live recording of real data. That kind of specificity — showing the actual number rather than talking around it — is also a form of the Bold Claim principle, which comes up later. Specificity earns trust, and trust earns clicks.

He is quick to add that he is not a thumbnail expert. His average CTR is 7-8%, not 10%. Some thumbnails perform well and some miss. The one that hit 10.3% happened to combine several elements at once: high contrast, face enhancement, a clean background, minimal text, and a very specific dollar figure that was impossible to scroll past. The goal of this walkthrough is to show you how to stack those same elements.

The Two Tools Alston Uses (Neither Has a Monthly Fee)

Adobe Photoshop is the default recommendation in most thumbnail tutorials. It is powerful, it is industry-standard, and it costs roughly $23 per month with a subscription. Alston uses two tools that each require a one-time purchase and never charge again.

The first is Luminar AI. It is a photo editing tool with AI-powered face enhancement built directly into the interface. You load your selfie, find the Face section, and drag sliders to improve your eyes, skin, lips, and surface shine. Alston is not an affiliate for this product — he notes that they do have an affiliate program, he just does not participate in it. He uses it because it does the face work faster than manual retouching and because faces are the primary driver of thumbnail clicks.

The second is Affinity Photo. He describes it directly: “basically Photoshop without the monthly bill.” It opens PSD files natively, so if someone sends you a Photoshop template, it still works. Affinity Photo handles everything after Luminar: building the background, layering your edited face photo, writing and styling text, adjusting contrast, applying effects, and exporting the finished image. Alston says he technically has access to Photoshop but does not use it. Affinity does everything he needs.

Step 1: Edit Your Face Photo in Luminar AI

Alston starts with a selfie taken on his smartphone. Not a mirrorless camera. Not studio lighting. A phone. He says this directly and without apology: “I don’t have a fancy camera.” The editing tools handle what more expensive gear would handle, and the result is clean enough to drive a 10% CTR. Do not let gear become the reason you delay.

Once the photo is open in Luminar AI, he goes to Edit and clicks Enhance. Then he scrolls down to the Face section. Here is what he adjusts:

Eyes: He turns all the eye sliders up and brings eye size to roughly 70%. Slightly larger eyes read as more engaged at the scale thumbnails are displayed — usually around 200 to 300 pixels wide in the YouTube feed. You want the face to communicate expression even at that reduced size.

Eye Whitening: He turns this all the way up. Whiter sclera signals alertness and energy. On a thumbnail grid where someone is scanning fast, bright eyes pull attention toward the face. This is a small adjustment with a noticeable payoff.

Lips — Darkening: He darkens the lips. The reason is contrast. Darker lips create a stronger boundary between the mouth and the surrounding skin, which makes the whole face appear sharper and more defined without any actual sharpening filter applied to the image.

Skin: Depending on how he looks that day, he may push the skin smoothing all the way up. He says the result “kind of looks similar” to how he looks naturally, just without the imperfections that a phone camera picks up under uneven light. The goal is not to look fake — it is to look like yourself in the best possible conditions.

Shine Remover: He turns this all the way up. His T-zone catches light, and a shiny forehead or nose competes with the face for visual attention. Removing it keeps the viewer’s eye on the expression rather than the reflection. Once all adjustments are set, he clicks Export, saves to his desktop, and opens the file in Affinity Photo.

Step 2: Build the Full Thumbnail in Affinity Photo

With the enhanced selfie saved as a PSD file, Alston drags it directly into Affinity Photo. He describes the result as “half AI, half human.” The face retains natural structure but looks noticeably sharper than a raw phone photo. This is the version of yourself that goes on every thumbnail.

Isolating the subject: He uses the selection tool to select himself, then inverts the pixel selection, then deletes the background. This leaves him as a clean cutout on a transparent layer that can sit on top of any color or image. He notes he is not using professional terminology — he just shows what he does and why it works.

Changing the shirt color: This step catches people off guard but makes complete visual sense. In the thumbnail that hit 10.3%, Alston’s shirt is green. That green was chosen to match the dollar amount text on the thumbnail. In the video, he was wearing a red shirt. He uses the selection tool to select everything red, goes to Adjustments, then Color, and shifts the hue to green so the shirt matches the text. The result is color coherence — the viewer’s eye moves naturally from the face to the number because the shirt color acts as a visual bridge between the two.

Centering and sizing: He arranges the subject to be centered, adjusts the size, and brings it down slightly in the frame. This creates visual breathing room above the head, which is where most creators place their bold claim text.

Cranking contrast: He turns the contrast all the way up on the subject layer. High contrast is one of the most consistent patterns across high-performing thumbnails. It makes the subject pop against the background and signals “this is important” at a glance. He acknowledges his audience responds well to it and keeps using it because it works.

Outer glow effect: He adds an outer glow in the Effects panel. This is the soft halo that separates the subject from the background even when both are dark. It is subtle but effective, particularly when the background color is near-black and the subject’s clothing is also dark.

The Bold Claim: The Actual Reason People Click

All the photo editing in the world does not matter if your thumbnail does not have a bold claim. This is the core of what made Alston’s 10.3% thumbnail work — and it is the most transferable idea in the entire video.

The bold claim in that specific thumbnail was $163,800. A dollar amount that specific is impossible to dismiss. It is not “make money online.” It is not “earn extra income.” It is $163,800. The brain wants to know how. That curiosity drives the click. He also references a “$638 per year” figure in the same context, suggesting the thumbnail showed both a large annual total and its monthly or weekly breakdown. The specificity is the point.

He cites a channel called Film Booth (he references it as “film review or Film Booth”) for the BENS framework. The letters stand for Bold, Easy, Newbie-friendly, and Something (the fourth term he could not recall exactly but the concept is that the claim must feel accessible). Thumbnails that consistently drive high CTR share at least two of these four qualities.

He walks through examples on YouTube to show the pattern in other niches. AI flowers: 29,000 views, bold claim in the title. “10,000 a month” in the thumbnail text: bold claim with a round number aspiration. “Website in 10 minutes”: bold claim because anyone who has built a website knows it takes hours, so 10 minutes sounds shocking. In the cooking category, the top-performing how-to-bake-a-cake videos show simple kitchens, no stand mixer, no professional bakery setup — and text that says “for beginners.” The bold claim is: this is easy. Betty Crocker’s beginner cake video has 262,000 views on exactly that premise.

The bold claim does not have to involve money. He gives the knitting niche as an example: “You knit a complete quilt in 20 minutes.” That is a bold claim because anyone in that niche knows it takes far longer. The gap between expectation and claim is what creates curiosity. Close that gap in the video, and viewers feel the payoff was real. Someone even commented on his video with the exact timestamp where he discussed the $163,800 or $168,000 figure — which means he delivered on the claim, and they noticed.

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Background Color, Font, and the Outer Glow Trick

Three finishing details separate a thumbnail that looks generic from one that feels professional, and all three are easy to replicate.

Background color: Alston’s background is not pure black. It is hex code #363636, which is a very dark charcoal gray. He shows the difference on screen between pure black (#000000) and #363636, and the charcoal version looks, in his words, “modern and trendy.” Pure black can feel heavy or outdated. A near-black gray reads as intentional and clean. This is a one-number change that anyone can make in any design tool.

Font: He uses Montserrat. It is widely used across social media platforms, which means it carries built-in familiarity. Viewers have seen it on Instagram graphics, YouTube banners, and course covers. That familiarity makes the text feel professional without demanding a specific paid font. He also applies an outline to the text and adds an outer shadow, both of which improve readability over a dark background.

Text volume: He is clear about this. You do not need a lot of text on the screen. The text needs to send a message. One bold claim, sized large enough to fill significant visual space, is more effective than several lines of explanatory copy. A viewer spending one second on your thumbnail should be able to read it entirely. If they cannot, you have too many words.

Honest Drawbacks: What This Process Will Not Fix

Alston is candid about where this process has limits, and that candor is worth preserving here rather than glossing over.

First, not every thumbnail will work. He uploaded a thumbnail the day before filming this video and it did not perform well. He says the bold claim was not strong enough — it did not really qualify as a bold claim at all. The process is repeatable but the creative judgment required to identify a genuinely bold claim is a skill that develops over time with testing.

Second, Luminar AI and Affinity Photo both require a learning curve. Alston repeatedly notes he is not a photo editor, he is not using professional terminology, and he is showing you what works for him rather than presenting himself as an authority. If you are new to either tool, expect to spend time with the interfaces before the workflow feels smooth.

Third, a high CTR alone does not grow a channel. If the video does not deliver on the thumbnail’s promise — the bold claim — retention suffers. Someone commenting the exact timestamp of where Alston paid off his $163,800 claim is evidence that he delivered. If your thumbnail promises something your video cannot back up, the clicks will not convert into subscribers or watch time.

Fourth, thumbnails are one input. Alston’s own channel shows a range of results. Some thumbnails with great contrast and a face photo did not perform. Some of the ones that did well share a pattern: the bold claim plus high contrast plus a clean face. All three together seem to be the combination, not any single element alone.

Testing Is the Real Strategy

At the end of the video, Alston scrolls through his own channel to show the range of thumbnails he has tried. Red, green, various layouts, different text volumes. He describes it as experimenting to see what works. One of his best-performing thumbnails had the text “money is everywhere” with a high-contrast face and green background. Another hit without that specific combination. The pattern that holds across the winners is high contrast plus a bold claim. Everything else is a variable to test.

YouTube allows you to swap a thumbnail on any published video at any time. This means a video that underperforms is not permanently stuck with the thumbnail it launched with. You can build a new version, upload it as the replacement, and watch whether the CTR shifts over the next few hundred impressions. Alston mentions he is always going back and testing new versions, particularly on videos that have existing watch time and should be pulling more clicks than they currently are.

The practical approach: pick two variables at a time (claim language and background color, or face size and text size), run one version for two to three weeks, swap, and compare. Do not change everything at once or you will not know what moved the number.

Find Your X

Thumbnails are the entry point — but they work best when you are making content about something you are genuinely positioned to teach. If you are not sure yet what your income path looks like or what kind of content you should be building toward, the Platform Proof Finder asks a few targeted questions and gives you a personalized recommendation. Take two minutes at finder.platformproof.com before spending hours building a thumbnail strategy for the wrong topic.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good click-through rate for a YouTube thumbnail?

The industry average is around 2-5%. A CTR above 5% is considered strong. Anything in the 7-10% range is exceptional. Alston’s average is 7-8%, with one thumbnail hitting 10.3%. These numbers vary significantly by channel size, niche, and how established your audience is, so compare your CTR to your own historical baseline first before benchmarking against others.

Do I need Photoshop to make good thumbnails?

No. Alston uses Affinity Photo as a Photoshop replacement and calls it “basically Photoshop without the monthly bill.” Affinity Photo is a one-time purchase, opens PSD files natively, and handles all the layering, text, effects, and export work a thumbnail requires. He has access to Photoshop and still does not use it.

What is Luminar AI and why does Alston use it?

Luminar AI is a photo editing application with AI-powered face enhancement tools built in. Alston uses it specifically to sharpen his face for thumbnails: enlarging eyes, whitening sclera, darkening lips, smoothing skin, and removing shine. It is a one-time purchase. He is not an affiliate and is not paid to recommend it — he uses it because it produces results faster than manual retouching in a general-purpose editor.

What is a bold claim and why does it matter for thumbnails?

A bold claim is a specific, surprising statement that creates enough curiosity to force a click. Alston’s best example is “$163,800” displayed prominently on a thumbnail. The specificity makes it feel real, and the size of the number demands an explanation the viewer cannot get without watching. A bold claim is not clickbait — it must be paid off in the video. Vague promises and round numbers underperform because they do not create the same “I have to know how” reaction.

What is the BENS framework for thumbnails?

BENS stands for Bold, Easy, Newbie-friendly, and Something (Alston could not recall the exact fourth term but attributes the framework to the YouTube channel Film Booth). The idea is that the best-performing thumbnails in any niche combine at least two of these qualities. The claim looks big (Bold), the process looks achievable (Easy), someone brand new could attempt it (Newbie-friendly), and there is a specific hook that makes it different from every other video on the topic.

What font does Alston use on his thumbnails?

Montserrat. It is free, widely available, and appears across social media and YouTube channels at high frequency. That familiarity makes it feel professional to viewers even if they cannot identify the typeface by name. He applies an outline and an outer shadow to improve readability over dark backgrounds.

Why does he use #363636 instead of pure black for the background?

Pure black (#000000) can look heavy and dated. Hex #363636 is a very dark charcoal gray that reads as modern and intentional. Alston shows the visual difference on screen in the video. The gray also gives the outer glow effect on the subject layer somewhere to work against — a glow on pure black is nearly invisible, whereas on dark gray it registers clearly.

Can I change a thumbnail after a video is already published?

Yes. YouTube lets you replace a thumbnail on any published video at any time through YouTube Studio. Alston mentions he is continuously testing and replacing thumbnails on older videos. If a video is already getting traffic but the CTR is low, a new thumbnail can meaningfully improve performance without requiring any changes to the video itself. This makes thumbnails one of the few levers you can pull on content that is already live.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “How To Make Amazing Thumbnails FAST & Easy,” YouTube, youtu.be/3Ybwz5c-C60
Luminar AI (one-time purchase photo editor with AI face enhancement): skylum.com
Affinity Photo (one-time purchase Photoshop alternative): affinity.serif.com
Film Booth YouTube channel — source of the BENS (Bold, Easy, Newbie-friendly, Something) thumbnail framework
YouTube Creator Academy — industry CTR benchmark data (2-5% average)

Helping 1 million working adults make their first $3,000 online with the skills they already have. Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof.