What is Amazing Thumbnails?

Amazing Thumbnails is an AI thumbnail studio that runs inside this site. You brief it like you would brief a designer — the video title, a sentence about the video, who it is for, the look you want — and it renders finished thumbnails at the exact size YouTube or Shorts expects.

It is not only a generator. The same workspace holds your gallery, a targeted single-change editor, a remixer for new directions, a copywriter for titles and hooks, a scorer that predicts how well a thumbnail reads, client approval links, favourites, a credit ledger and — for agencies — client workspaces under your own brand.

Everything you generate is stored in this site's own uploads folder and can be downloaded individually or as a ZIP. No separate app to install, no design software to learn.

Getting started

1. Create your account Sign in on the Account page. New accounts start with a credit balance, so you can generate straight away. Agency members join through the registration link their agency sends.
2. Brief the AI Studio Open AI Studio, paste the video title, add a short brief and who the video is for, then pick the format — YouTube 16:9 or Shorts 9:16.
3. Art-direct it Choose a style preset, an emotion and the visual medium, add your headline and sub-text, and drop in reference photos for the person, product, background or text style you want matched.
4. Generate Set the quality and how many variations you want. The estimated cost is shown before you commit. Each image takes roughly half a minute to a minute; the run keeps going even if your connection drops.
5. Refine in the gallery Favourite the strong ones. Use Edit with AI for a single targeted change, or the Remixer for a fresh direction. Score anything you are unsure about in the Analyzer.
6. Approve and publish Send a client review link for sign-off, generate matching titles and hooks in the Copywriter, then download the winner — or the whole set as a ZIP.

The studio remembers where you were: the left sidebar switches between modules and the address bar keeps your place, so you can send yourself a link straight back to a tab.

The modules

Each module is one item in the studio sidebar. They all work on the same campaigns and the same credit balance.

Using AI Studio

AI Studio is the campaign builder. Every field below feeds the prompt, so the more you fill in, the closer the first batch lands.

Video title

The single most important field. Write the real title — the AI reads it as the subject of the picture.

Brief / description

A sentence or two about what happens in the video. Mention the scene, the object or the moment you want on screen.

Target audience

Who is scrolling past. This changes the tone, the colours and how loud the design gets.

Format

YouTube renders 1280×720. Shorts, Reels and TikTok render 1080×1920. Pick before you generate — it changes the whole composition.

Style preset and emotion

The preset sets the design language (bold, gaming, vlog, educational, documentary, podcast, business, illustration). The emotion sets the expression and the mood.

Art style and image type

Image type is the visual medium and it is obeyed strictly: photoreal, 3D render, anime, cartoon, low-poly, flat vector and so on. If you pick anime, the whole thumbnail is anime.

AI person

When you have no subject photo, choose whether the AI should invent a man, a woman, or nobody at all.

Headline and sub-text

Typed exactly as you write it, so keep it to two to four words. Sub-text is the smaller line underneath. You also control position and size.

Reference photos

Four slots: subject (a face to keep recognisable), product (an object to keep faithful), background (a scene) and text style (typography to match).

Quality and variations

Low is for quick exploration, high is for the final image. Variations is how many different thumbnails you get in this run, and the credit estimate updates as you change it.

Decorative accents and extra prompt

Accents add subtle flares and sparkles. The extra prompt is a free-text field for anything the other fields do not cover.

Press Save draft at any time — the studio also auto-saves while you type. Generation runs one image at a time and each finished thumbnail appears in the grid as it lands, so you can judge the first result before the batch ends.

Edit with AI

Open any thumbnail in the Gallery and press Edit with AI. Describe the one thing you want different — "make the shirt red", "remove the arrow", "put her in a kitchen" — and everything else is reproduced as it was.

• Attach a subject photo to drop a person or object into the scene, or a background photo to replace the backdrop.
• Choose Medium or High quality; the cost of the edit is shown on the button before you run it.
• The result is saved as a new thumbnail next to the original, so you can always go back.
• One instruction per edit works best. Run a second edit for the next change.

Using the Remixer

The Remixer takes a thumbnail that already works and produces new directions from it. Pick a thumbnail from your gallery or upload one, write an instruction, choose how many variations you want, and decide what happens to the headline.

• Keep headline — the existing wording is preserved.
• Custom headline — your exact words replace it.
• AI headline — a fresh punchy line per variation.
• Start with two variations. Each one is a separate AI request, so ten variations means ten charges and a much longer wait.
• Every remix is recorded in the history under its source thumbnail.

Using the Copywriter

Choose a thumbnail, choose what you need — thumbnail text, video titles, hooks, a description or calls to action — and generate a set of options. Copy the one you want with a single click, or regenerate for more.

Using the Analyzer

Pick a generated thumbnail or upload any image. The Analyzer returns a score with a breakdown of text readability, colour contrast, visual hierarchy, composition and mobile visibility, followed by concrete improvements you can act on.

Use it as a tie-breaker between two options, or to work out why a thumbnail that looks fine on your monitor disappears on a phone.

Client review

1. Create a reviewOpen Client Review, name it, optionally put it in a folder for that client, and pick the thumbnails you want judged.
2. Share the linkCopy the private link and send it. Your client needs no account and sees none of your other work.
3. Collect decisionsThey comment on individual options and either approve one or request a revision. Everything appears in your studio with the revision history.

Review links expire after the number of days the site owner sets, so old links stop working on their own.

Credits and your own API key

Every AI action costs credits, and the price of each feature is set by the site owner. New accounts start with a balance, and the estimated cost of a run is always shown before you start it.

• The Credits page shows your balance and a full usage log: date, feature, credits spent, balance left and which API key served the request.
• Save a personal OpenAI key in Settings and press Test key. While your own key is active, nothing you do costs credits — you pay OpenAI directly.
• Failed requests are not charged. If a run stops halfway, only the images that were saved are billed.

Agency and whitelabel

The Agency module creates client workspaces. Add a client directly or send a registration link, give them credits, and switch into their workspace to work on their campaigns. A banner always shows whose workspace you are in.

Whitelabel replaces the studio name, logo, favicon and accent colours with yours, so a client who logs in sees your product.

Tips for better thumbnails

• Two to four words of headline text. Long sentences shrink to nothing on a phone.
• Keep important detail away from the very edge. Thumbnails are fitted to an exact canvas, and anything sitting on the boundary can be trimmed.
• Generate at medium quality while you explore, then re-run the winner at high.
• Upload a clean, well-lit subject photo — a sharp reference gives a recognisable face.
• Use Edit with AI for one change at a time. Two instructions in one edit fight each other.
• Score a shortlist in the Analyzer before you send it to a client; fix the lowest-rated point first.
• Duplicate a campaign that worked and change only the title to keep a series consistent.

Troubleshooting

Still stuck?

Send us the campaign name and what you expected to happen, and we will look into it.