THUMBNAIL
CREATOR

The Thumbnail Creator builds finished thumbnails and social graphics without leaving ProPlayVision. It opens in its own window, works from a frame of your footage or any image you drop in, and exports at the exact size each platform expects.

It is a layout tool rather than a photo editor: you position and style pieces — title, badge, callout, logo, bottom bar — over a background, and the app handles the sizing.

Starting a thumbnail

Drop an image on the canvas, or click to browse. A frame grabbed from Cut Room works well, as does anything from your desktop.

Quick Presets give you a finished layout in one click, then you change the words:

• Play Breakdown — for a play or scheme video
• Blitz Defense — defensive pressure look
• Player Ratings — the Madden rating card style
• News Article — a headline treatment

Starting from a preset and editing it is almost always faster than building from nothing.

Canvas format

Set this first, because every element positions itself relative to the canvas.

Changing format after you've laid everything out means repositioning. Pick the shape you're publishing to before you start.

The background

Zoom, Pan X and Pan Y frame the image. FILL, H-FIT and V-FIT are one-click fits — fill covers the canvas, and the two fits match width or height.

Reframe on Main Canvas lets you drag the image directly rather than working the sliders.

Background Settings hold the picture controls:

Brightness, Blur, Sharpen and Vignette Intensity — blur is more useful than it sounds. A slightly blurred background makes overlaid text far easier to read.

Dark Overlay and Gradient Overlay dim the image so text stands out. Gradient Top and Gradient Bottom set the colours, and Direction controls which way it runs.

Fallback Color shows through where no image covers the canvas.

Overlay patterns

A texture laid over the background: Carbon, Circuit, Corners, Curve, Diagonal, Dots, Grid, Halftone, Hex, Loop, Noise, Rays, Slash, Spotlight, Triangle — or None.

Pattern Opacity controls how strongly it reads. Kept subtle, a pattern adds depth; at full strength it competes with your subject.

Text

Title Lines hold your main text — one line per entry, so you control exactly where it breaks rather than letting it wrap on its own.

Line Colors can differ per line. Colouring one word differently is the simplest way to make a title read as a headline rather than a sentence.

Typography controls the rest:

Font — 14 display faces including Anton, Bebas Neue, Oswald, Russo One, Teko and Orbitron. These are heavy condensed faces chosen because thumbnails are viewed small.

Base Size, Line Spacing, Alignment, X Position, Y Position, Rotation.

Stroke Color and Stroke Width put an outline around letters. On a busy football image, a stroke is often what makes text legible at all.

Effects add Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, Glow, Inner Glow and Gradient Fill, with Depth, Distance, Strength and Opacity for each.

Badge, callout and card

Three separate elements, each with its own text, colour, size and X/Y position.

Badge — a short tag. A rating, a number, a word like NEW.

Callout / Arrow Badge — points at something in the image. Shape offers Arrow Right, Arrow Left, Chevron, Burst, Pill and Block.

Tag / Category Badge — labels the video's category.

Madden Rating Card builds the familiar ratings-card look, with Player Name and Player Ratings.

Icons and stamps

A set of shapes and symbols — arrows, stars, hearts, lightning, circles, triangles, music notes and more — with Icon Color, Size and Icon Alignment.

Logos

Logo Library holds your saved logos, and Logo Upload adds new ones. Quick Logos has ProPlayVision, MaddenGuides and EA Sports ready to place.

Logo Position places it; Size and Opacity finish it.

Bottom info bar

A strip across the base of the thumbnail, useful for branding a series so every episode looks related.

Bar Text, Bar Color, Website URL, and Social Icons in Bottom Bar — YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X.

Subscribe Button adds a call-to-action graphic.

Colour templates

Primary Accent, Secondary Accent and Accent Color drive the palette across elements, so you can restyle a whole thumbnail without touching each piece.

Setting a pair of accents once and reusing them is what makes a channel's thumbnails look like a set rather than a collection.

Guides and handles

Guides show alignment lines. Handles let you drag elements directly on the canvas instead of using position sliders.

Neither appears in the export.

The Gemini Image Processor

Auto-sizes and sharpens an image for you. Useful when a source frame is smaller than the canvas or slightly soft — it's doing a better job than a plain upscale would.

Magenta Tolerance handles images with a magenta key colour, removing that background so a cutout sits cleanly over your own.

Exporting

Download saves the finished thumbnail. WebP and Transparent are available alongside the standard export, and Output Size sets the resolution.

Transparent export matters when you're producing an overlay to sit on top of something else rather than a standalone image.

Undo and reset

Undo and Redo cover your edits. Reset clears the section you're working in; Reset All starts the whole thumbnail again.

Worth knowing

Set the canvas format before anything else. It's the one change that forces you to redo work.

Thumbnails are judged small. Whatever you build, shrink the preview to roughly the size it appears in a feed and check the title is still readable. Most thumbnails fail on text size, not on design.

Grab your source frame in Cut Room. The Grab frame button saves the current frame as a PNG, which drops straight in here.

Voice commands don't reach this window. The microphone lives in the Chalkboard; the Thumbnail Creator is mouse and keyboard.