How To Overcome No Image Problem in YouTube Shorts

Video thumbnails are important since they encourage people to click and watch the video. But what if your set YouTube Shorts thumbnail is not showing? YouTube will use a random part of the video as the thumbnail. It may be an unflattering or uninteresting shot. Then, your Shorts video is doomed.

That said, it is a problem you want to solve. Here are 7 FAQs about YouTube Shorts thumbnails. They may help you with fixing this issue.

Q1. Can I Customize YouTube Shorts Thumbnails?

Yes, you can. YouTube did allow short-form video creators to upload custom thumbnails for their Shorts. However, they aren’t that optimized. For instance, some people may not see them on the Shorts shelf. Also, if you share a link to the video somewhere else, the old video thumbnail may show instead of the new one.

Adding a custom thumbnail for YouTube Shorts is the same as adding one for long-form videos on the platform. Follow these steps:

• Open the YouTube mobile app. Click the “Plus” icon at the bottom center > “Create Short.” Upload, edit, and post your video.

• Get to your desktop computer or laptop. Open your channel’s YouTube Studio.

• On the left navigation menu, click “Content.”

• Click the “pencil” icon next to the Shorts you just uploaded. This video should be at the top of the list.
• Navigate to the Thumbnail section. Click “Create Thumbnail.”

Q2. Why Are YouTube Shorts Thumbnails Not Showing?

It’s not you who’s the only one with Shorts thumbnails not showing. Many short-form content creators on the platform are also facing this issue. A YouTuber took to Reddit to complain about how he uploaded custom thumbnails for all his videos. The thumbnails are correct in the editor. However, YouTube still displays a random frame as the thumbnail on the Shorts shelf.

“They ALL have randomly selected different parts of each video I have uploaded & somehow generated a new/unknown thumbnail that was neither what I uploaded as the custom option nor 1 of the 3 that YouTube auto populated.”

YouTuber on Reddit

The reason behind this is the difference in the thumbnail size. Regular YouTube video thumbnails are in the ratio of 16:9. Meanwhile, Shorts uses a ratio of 9:16. The thing is that YouTube does not yet allow you to upload 9:16 thumbnails. Thus, the thumbnail for Shorts may show correctly on the video section but not on the Shorts shelf.

Q3. How to Fix YouTube Shorts Thumbnail Problem?

Unfortunately, there is no reliable fix to this problem yet. YouTubers have tried different things in hopes that YouTube will display the correct thumbnail for their Shorts.

Some YouTubers have tried using different images. Others have experimented with changing the aspect ratio of the thumbnail or using Adobe editor for ratios. Clearing histories and cache, using different browsers, resizing, and changing the images’ resolution have also been done. Sadly, these are all failed attempts.

Q4. How To Boost Views When I Have no Control Over YouTube Shorts Thumbnails?

Attracting viewers on Shorts is the same as attracting viewers on the main YouTube. You use interesting thumbnails and video titles. Since thumbnails are out of the options, selecting great video titles has become even more important.

Here are some pointers. Your title should be at most 40 characters. Also, it should be concise and irresistible. And forget about SEO since no one is searching for YouTube Shorts anyway. People consume what they see in their feeds. So instead, the title should be “snappy.” It should intrigue, entertain, or enlighten the viewers. That will net you some views for your Shorts content.

Q5. How To Get More Views on YouTube Shorts?

Forgoing the intro is the way to go. An intro will just prolong the video when people are in Shorts to find bite-sized videos. So jump right into the video content. You can also start the video with a still frame instead. Using hashtags, captions, and text effects are also recommended. And interacting with your audience through comments and pinned comments will keep them coming back to your Shorts channel.

Of course, ensuring that the video quality is high is key to getting more views. For that, you need a good video editor. You can try Wondershare Filmora , a powerful and easy-to-use video editor.

Free Download For Win 7 or later(64-bit)

Free Download For macOS 10.14 or later

The best thing is that you don’t need to transfer the video from your phone to your computer and back. Wondershare Filmora is available on mobile. And it’s one of the best tools for enhancing a short-form video.

Short-form video watchers love filters, transitions, and effects. And Filmora gives you access to all of that. It provides you with fun and amazing filters, effects, transitions, and stamps that can add a wow factor to your short-form video.

Q6. Do YouTube Shorts Make Money?

Making money from YouTube Shorts was challenging. The platform pays content creators who are doing well through the Creator Fund. However, as Shorts grew, the payout became smaller.

Luckily, that’s going to change. Starting this year, Shorts will be a part of the YouTube Partner Program. This means that you can make money from the ads that people watch on Shorts. According to YouTube, creators will keep 45% of the revenue. It will be distributed based on your share of total Shorts views.

YouTube also adjusted the requirements to qualify for the YPP. They made it easier for Shorts content creators to get into the program.

Q7. How Do You Make YouTube Shorts Play Normal?

You can watch Shorts like normal YouTube videos where you can rewind when you want to. Follow these steps.

On a Desktop Computer

• Open a Shorts video on YouTube.

• Pause the video.

• Click “Library” on the left panel.

• Select the Shorts you just watched. It should be on the top and first on the list.

On a Mobile Phone

• Open the YouTube app. Watch a Shorts video.

• Like the Shorts video.

• Tap “Library”

• Scroll down to find “Liked Videos.” Click on it.

• Select the Shorts video you just watched. It should be at the top of the list.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, custom thumbnails not showing on Shorts does not have a fix yet. So to attract viewers, you must leverage the things in your control. You must title your videos in a way that will make users click the video. Also, adding effects and filters on the video using an editor like Wondershare Filmora can help.

Users can subscribe to Shorts channels. And if they see that your videos are well-edited and high-quality, they’ll be more likely to do so. Once they are subscribed, they will see and watch your videos more often.

Free Download For macOS 10.14 or later

The best thing is that you don’t need to transfer the video from your phone to your computer and back. Wondershare Filmora is available on mobile. And it’s one of the best tools for enhancing a short-form video.

Short-form video watchers love filters, transitions, and effects. And Filmora gives you access to all of that. It provides you with fun and amazing filters, effects, transitions, and stamps that can add a wow factor to your short-form video.

Q6. Do YouTube Shorts Make Money?

Making money from YouTube Shorts was challenging. The platform pays content creators who are doing well through the Creator Fund. However, as Shorts grew, the payout became smaller.

Luckily, that’s going to change. Starting this year, Shorts will be a part of the YouTube Partner Program. This means that you can make money from the ads that people watch on Shorts. According to YouTube, creators will keep 45% of the revenue. It will be distributed based on your share of total Shorts views.

YouTube also adjusted the requirements to qualify for the YPP. They made it easier for Shorts content creators to get into the program.

Q7. How Do You Make YouTube Shorts Play Normal?

You can watch Shorts like normal YouTube videos where you can rewind when you want to. Follow these steps.

On a Desktop Computer

• Open a Shorts video on YouTube.

• Pause the video.

• Click “Library” on the left panel.

• Select the Shorts you just watched. It should be on the top and first on the list.

On a Mobile Phone

• Open the YouTube app. Watch a Shorts video.

• Like the Shorts video.

• Tap “Library”

• Scroll down to find “Liked Videos.” Click on it.

• Select the Shorts video you just watched. It should be at the top of the list.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, custom thumbnails not showing on Shorts does not have a fix yet. So to attract viewers, you must leverage the things in your control. You must title your videos in a way that will make users click the video. Also, adding effects and filters on the video using an editor like Wondershare Filmora can help.

Users can subscribe to Shorts channels. And if they see that your videos are well-edited and high-quality, they’ll be more likely to do so. Once they are subscribed, they will see and watch your videos more often.

The Ultimate Guide to Brightening Up Your YouTube Content

How To Light Your YouTube Video

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

When it comes to sensitivity to light, no consumer-level camera sensor comes close in performance to the human eye. Many newbies to videography, though, don’t think about this when they use their camera indoors and discover that their recorded footage appears too dark.

If you want to use your camera indoors as many YouTubers do, you’ll need to have extra light. But the solution is not as simple as surrounding yourself with lamps that are all randomly placed.

Below, I’ll go into detail on how you can set up your lighting equipment to make your YouTube videos look good.

Table of Contents Using Light You Already Have Window LightingHome Lighting Home Studio Lighting Light Control3-Point Lighting4-Point Lighting

Part 1: Using Light You Already Have

Most beginner YouTubers light their videos with what they already have. That’s what I did to start as well. In the past, my video recording space consisted of natural sunlight coming from my window and ceiling light for times when the sunlight wasn’t strong enough.

1. Window Lighting

The best thing about window lighting is that it’s free. The worst thing about it is that it’s uncontrollable. The amount of light you get in your video can vary with all the changes in the weather.

Window lighting for me was especially difficult to work with because I live in a very rainy and cloudy city, Vancouver, Canada, where we pretty much just get three months of good sun.

Above are two freeze frames from one of Daniel’s past window-lit vlogs. Although these two frames are both from the same vlog, you can see that the image on the right looks brighter due to clearer skies at that moment. These varying amounts of light is what you will have to deal with if you choose to light your YouTube video with window lighting.

2. Home Lighting

Home lighting is another source of light that many new YouTubers use. In the past, when my window light wasn’t strong enough to light my video recording space, I would turn on the ceiling light.

Notice how the color of Daniel’s skin looks much more orange here (above) than the color of the skin in the two side-by-side window lighting examples? The side of the face also appears to look bluer. This all happened because he mixed up different color temperatures shining out of the two lights (cooler window light and warmer ceiling light).

Most home lighting is warmer in its color temperature. If you want to use your home lights without everything being orange-tinted, you’ll need to switch out your light bulbs for daytime LED light bulbs.

Ceiling lights are also typically situated in the center of a room in order to light an entire room evenly. This is not likely to be the best location for your filming video. Since the ceiling light was directly above the face in the above example, you can see harder shadows beneath his cheeks.

Part 2: Home Studio Lighting

If you rather not deal with all the window and home lighting challenges, you can set up studio lighting in your home.

1. Light Control

The first thing you’ll want to do to set up studio lighting in your home is to pick a room to film in and eliminate as much external lighting as you can. Use blinds, curtains, towels, or any thick fabric to block sunlight from shining into your room.

2. 3-Point Lighting

The most common setup for studio lighting is 3-point lighting. For this kind of lighting you’ll need three lights: a key light, a fill light, and a back light (also called a hair light).

Out of the three lights, the key light should be the brightest. When it is positioned to the left of you (as shown in the diagram above) your right side will have shadows.

To minimize the shadows on your right side, use a weaker light as a fill light. You don’t want your fill light to completely eliminate all your shadows or else your shot will look flat.

Lastly, a backlight positioned behind you can give an appealing highlight to the ends of your head and even help to separate your hair from blending into your background if both happen to be dark.

3. 4-Point Lighting

As a YouTuber, you may not only want yourself to be seen optimally with proper lighting, but you may also want your background to be seen optimally, especially if you’ve taken the time to decorate it for your audience.

What you’ll need to ensure that your background is sufficiently lit is 4-point lighting setup. The 4-point lighting setup is the same as a 3-point lighting setup, but with an additional light shining at your background.

For more information on lighting equipment, check out my Top 17 Video Lighting Equipment For YouTubers .

Touch Up YouTube Videos with Filmora

Filmora is one of the best video editing software for YouTube beginners to start the YouTube channel. So, if you find the lighting isn’t perfect after recording, you can use the Auto Color Enhancement feature in Filmora to adjust the color with one-click. Or, you can change the white balance, Light, color, and HSL manually. Filmora also features some presets and LUTs templates , which allows you to apply pre-programmed effects to video for color correction faster.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

When it comes to sensitivity to light, no consumer-level camera sensor comes close in performance to the human eye. Many newbies to videography, though, don’t think about this when they use their camera indoors and discover that their recorded footage appears too dark.

If you want to use your camera indoors as many YouTubers do, you’ll need to have extra light. But the solution is not as simple as surrounding yourself with lamps that are all randomly placed.

Below, I’ll go into detail on how you can set up your lighting equipment to make your YouTube videos look good.

Table of Contents Using Light You Already Have Window LightingHome Lighting Home Studio Lighting Light Control3-Point Lighting4-Point Lighting

Part 1: Using Light You Already Have

Most beginner YouTubers light their videos with what they already have. That’s what I did to start as well. In the past, my video recording space consisted of natural sunlight coming from my window and ceiling light for times when the sunlight wasn’t strong enough.

1. Window Lighting

The best thing about window lighting is that it’s free. The worst thing about it is that it’s uncontrollable. The amount of light you get in your video can vary with all the changes in the weather.

Window lighting for me was especially difficult to work with because I live in a very rainy and cloudy city, Vancouver, Canada, where we pretty much just get three months of good sun.

Above are two freeze frames from one of Daniel’s past window-lit vlogs. Although these two frames are both from the same vlog, you can see that the image on the right looks brighter due to clearer skies at that moment. These varying amounts of light is what you will have to deal with if you choose to light your YouTube video with window lighting.

2. Home Lighting

Home lighting is another source of light that many new YouTubers use. In the past, when my window light wasn’t strong enough to light my video recording space, I would turn on the ceiling light.

Notice how the color of Daniel’s skin looks much more orange here (above) than the color of the skin in the two side-by-side window lighting examples? The side of the face also appears to look bluer. This all happened because he mixed up different color temperatures shining out of the two lights (cooler window light and warmer ceiling light).

Most home lighting is warmer in its color temperature. If you want to use your home lights without everything being orange-tinted, you’ll need to switch out your light bulbs for daytime LED light bulbs.

Ceiling lights are also typically situated in the center of a room in order to light an entire room evenly. This is not likely to be the best location for your filming video. Since the ceiling light was directly above the face in the above example, you can see harder shadows beneath his cheeks.

Part 2: Home Studio Lighting

If you rather not deal with all the window and home lighting challenges, you can set up studio lighting in your home.

1. Light Control

The first thing you’ll want to do to set up studio lighting in your home is to pick a room to film in and eliminate as much external lighting as you can. Use blinds, curtains, towels, or any thick fabric to block sunlight from shining into your room.

2. 3-Point Lighting

The most common setup for studio lighting is 3-point lighting. For this kind of lighting you’ll need three lights: a key light, a fill light, and a back light (also called a hair light).

Out of the three lights, the key light should be the brightest. When it is positioned to the left of you (as shown in the diagram above) your right side will have shadows.

To minimize the shadows on your right side, use a weaker light as a fill light. You don’t want your fill light to completely eliminate all your shadows or else your shot will look flat.

Lastly, a backlight positioned behind you can give an appealing highlight to the ends of your head and even help to separate your hair from blending into your background if both happen to be dark.

3. 4-Point Lighting

As a YouTuber, you may not only want yourself to be seen optimally with proper lighting, but you may also want your background to be seen optimally, especially if you’ve taken the time to decorate it for your audience.

What you’ll need to ensure that your background is sufficiently lit is 4-point lighting setup. The 4-point lighting setup is the same as a 3-point lighting setup, but with an additional light shining at your background.

For more information on lighting equipment, check out my Top 17 Video Lighting Equipment For YouTubers .

Touch Up YouTube Videos with Filmora

Filmora is one of the best video editing software for YouTube beginners to start the YouTube channel. So, if you find the lighting isn’t perfect after recording, you can use the Auto Color Enhancement feature in Filmora to adjust the color with one-click. Or, you can change the white balance, Light, color, and HSL manually. Filmora also features some presets and LUTs templates , which allows you to apply pre-programmed effects to video for color correction faster.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

When it comes to sensitivity to light, no consumer-level camera sensor comes close in performance to the human eye. Many newbies to videography, though, don’t think about this when they use their camera indoors and discover that their recorded footage appears too dark.

If you want to use your camera indoors as many YouTubers do, you’ll need to have extra light. But the solution is not as simple as surrounding yourself with lamps that are all randomly placed.

Below, I’ll go into detail on how you can set up your lighting equipment to make your YouTube videos look good.

Table of Contents Using Light You Already Have Window LightingHome Lighting Home Studio Lighting Light Control3-Point Lighting4-Point Lighting

Part 1: Using Light You Already Have

Most beginner YouTubers light their videos with what they already have. That’s what I did to start as well. In the past, my video recording space consisted of natural sunlight coming from my window and ceiling light for times when the sunlight wasn’t strong enough.

1. Window Lighting

The best thing about window lighting is that it’s free. The worst thing about it is that it’s uncontrollable. The amount of light you get in your video can vary with all the changes in the weather.

Window lighting for me was especially difficult to work with because I live in a very rainy and cloudy city, Vancouver, Canada, where we pretty much just get three months of good sun.

Above are two freeze frames from one of Daniel’s past window-lit vlogs. Although these two frames are both from the same vlog, you can see that the image on the right looks brighter due to clearer skies at that moment. These varying amounts of light is what you will have to deal with if you choose to light your YouTube video with window lighting.

2. Home Lighting

Home lighting is another source of light that many new YouTubers use. In the past, when my window light wasn’t strong enough to light my video recording space, I would turn on the ceiling light.

Notice how the color of Daniel’s skin looks much more orange here (above) than the color of the skin in the two side-by-side window lighting examples? The side of the face also appears to look bluer. This all happened because he mixed up different color temperatures shining out of the two lights (cooler window light and warmer ceiling light).

Most home lighting is warmer in its color temperature. If you want to use your home lights without everything being orange-tinted, you’ll need to switch out your light bulbs for daytime LED light bulbs.

Ceiling lights are also typically situated in the center of a room in order to light an entire room evenly. This is not likely to be the best location for your filming video. Since the ceiling light was directly above the face in the above example, you can see harder shadows beneath his cheeks.

Part 2: Home Studio Lighting

If you rather not deal with all the window and home lighting challenges, you can set up studio lighting in your home.

1. Light Control

The first thing you’ll want to do to set up studio lighting in your home is to pick a room to film in and eliminate as much external lighting as you can. Use blinds, curtains, towels, or any thick fabric to block sunlight from shining into your room.

2. 3-Point Lighting

The most common setup for studio lighting is 3-point lighting. For this kind of lighting you’ll need three lights: a key light, a fill light, and a back light (also called a hair light).

Out of the three lights, the key light should be the brightest. When it is positioned to the left of you (as shown in the diagram above) your right side will have shadows.

To minimize the shadows on your right side, use a weaker light as a fill light. You don’t want your fill light to completely eliminate all your shadows or else your shot will look flat.

Lastly, a backlight positioned behind you can give an appealing highlight to the ends of your head and even help to separate your hair from blending into your background if both happen to be dark.

3. 4-Point Lighting

As a YouTuber, you may not only want yourself to be seen optimally with proper lighting, but you may also want your background to be seen optimally, especially if you’ve taken the time to decorate it for your audience.

What you’ll need to ensure that your background is sufficiently lit is 4-point lighting setup. The 4-point lighting setup is the same as a 3-point lighting setup, but with an additional light shining at your background.

For more information on lighting equipment, check out my Top 17 Video Lighting Equipment For YouTubers .

Touch Up YouTube Videos with Filmora

Filmora is one of the best video editing software for YouTube beginners to start the YouTube channel. So, if you find the lighting isn’t perfect after recording, you can use the Auto Color Enhancement feature in Filmora to adjust the color with one-click. Or, you can change the white balance, Light, color, and HSL manually. Filmora also features some presets and LUTs templates , which allows you to apply pre-programmed effects to video for color correction faster.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

When it comes to sensitivity to light, no consumer-level camera sensor comes close in performance to the human eye. Many newbies to videography, though, don’t think about this when they use their camera indoors and discover that their recorded footage appears too dark.

If you want to use your camera indoors as many YouTubers do, you’ll need to have extra light. But the solution is not as simple as surrounding yourself with lamps that are all randomly placed.

Below, I’ll go into detail on how you can set up your lighting equipment to make your YouTube videos look good.

Table of Contents Using Light You Already Have Window LightingHome Lighting Home Studio Lighting Light Control3-Point Lighting4-Point Lighting

Part 1: Using Light You Already Have

Most beginner YouTubers light their videos with what they already have. That’s what I did to start as well. In the past, my video recording space consisted of natural sunlight coming from my window and ceiling light for times when the sunlight wasn’t strong enough.

1. Window Lighting

The best thing about window lighting is that it’s free. The worst thing about it is that it’s uncontrollable. The amount of light you get in your video can vary with all the changes in the weather.

Window lighting for me was especially difficult to work with because I live in a very rainy and cloudy city, Vancouver, Canada, where we pretty much just get three months of good sun.

Above are two freeze frames from one of Daniel’s past window-lit vlogs. Although these two frames are both from the same vlog, you can see that the image on the right looks brighter due to clearer skies at that moment. These varying amounts of light is what you will have to deal with if you choose to light your YouTube video with window lighting.

2. Home Lighting

Home lighting is another source of light that many new YouTubers use. In the past, when my window light wasn’t strong enough to light my video recording space, I would turn on the ceiling light.

Notice how the color of Daniel’s skin looks much more orange here (above) than the color of the skin in the two side-by-side window lighting examples? The side of the face also appears to look bluer. This all happened because he mixed up different color temperatures shining out of the two lights (cooler window light and warmer ceiling light).

Most home lighting is warmer in its color temperature. If you want to use your home lights without everything being orange-tinted, you’ll need to switch out your light bulbs for daytime LED light bulbs.

Ceiling lights are also typically situated in the center of a room in order to light an entire room evenly. This is not likely to be the best location for your filming video. Since the ceiling light was directly above the face in the above example, you can see harder shadows beneath his cheeks.

Part 2: Home Studio Lighting

If you rather not deal with all the window and home lighting challenges, you can set up studio lighting in your home.

1. Light Control

The first thing you’ll want to do to set up studio lighting in your home is to pick a room to film in and eliminate as much external lighting as you can. Use blinds, curtains, towels, or any thick fabric to block sunlight from shining into your room.

2. 3-Point Lighting

The most common setup for studio lighting is 3-point lighting. For this kind of lighting you’ll need three lights: a key light, a fill light, and a back light (also called a hair light).

Out of the three lights, the key light should be the brightest. When it is positioned to the left of you (as shown in the diagram above) your right side will have shadows.

To minimize the shadows on your right side, use a weaker light as a fill light. You don’t want your fill light to completely eliminate all your shadows or else your shot will look flat.

Lastly, a backlight positioned behind you can give an appealing highlight to the ends of your head and even help to separate your hair from blending into your background if both happen to be dark.

3. 4-Point Lighting

As a YouTuber, you may not only want yourself to be seen optimally with proper lighting, but you may also want your background to be seen optimally, especially if you’ve taken the time to decorate it for your audience.

What you’ll need to ensure that your background is sufficiently lit is 4-point lighting setup. The 4-point lighting setup is the same as a 3-point lighting setup, but with an additional light shining at your background.

For more information on lighting equipment, check out my Top 17 Video Lighting Equipment For YouTubers .

Touch Up YouTube Videos with Filmora

Filmora is one of the best video editing software for YouTube beginners to start the YouTube channel. So, if you find the lighting isn’t perfect after recording, you can use the Auto Color Enhancement feature in Filmora to adjust the color with one-click. Or, you can change the white balance, Light, color, and HSL manually. Filmora also features some presets and LUTs templates , which allows you to apply pre-programmed effects to video for color correction faster.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

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