How I Make My Awesome Hive Thumbnails 👨‍💻 A GIMP Image Editor Int...

Several of you Hivers have asked me how I create my thumbnails, so I made this tutorial to get you started with GIMP.

GIMP is a freeware open-source image editor program that meets all my needs for basic photo editing and creating attractive Hive thumbnails.

This Is For You Hivers 🤝

I surely have forgotten many of the Hivers who have inquired about my thumbnails, but the two most recent Hivers that asked me to share my method and software were @silversaver888 and @dmilliz, so this is for you two, and of course anyone else that can make use of this tutorial.

Before You Start ✋

Start with an eye-catching image that will look attractive, even at a very small size.

The most ideal image size I've noticed for Hive thumbnails is 800x480 pixels. This size will display your full image and not cause any undesirable auto-cropping.

STEP 1 To start, right click the image you want to work with, and open it with GIMP. If you did it correctly, you should be starting with a screen like this.
STEP 2 About halfway down the right-hand side of the screen you'll see an icon of your image and your file's name. Right click the image icon and select Add Alpha Channel. This will cause any areas we delete to become transparent.
STEP 3 Right click your image icon in the lower right-hand side of the screen. Select Duplicate Layer, and now you will have two identical images stacked on top of each other.
STEP 4 There are now two duplicate images. Click the eye symbol of the lower icon to make it invisible for now. Left click on the upper icon to highlight it, as it is the one we will be working with.
STEP 5 Left click on the lasso-looking box to engage the Free Select Tool. We will use this tool to remove the background from the first layer. For this tutorial, we will be keeping only @Sreypov and deleting everything else.
STEP 6 Left click on the lasso-looking box to engage the Free Select Tool. We will use this tool to remove the background from the first layer. For this tutorial, we will be keeping only @Sreypov and deleting everything else.
STEP 7 Zoom in a bit using Ctrl + or hold Ctrl while rolling your scroll wheel forward. For this tutorial, I am starting at the pants, but we could begin the clickpath anywhere on the figure/object we want to isolate.
STEP 8 Begin by clicking your way around the exterior of the object you want to isolate, in this case @Sreypov. If you feel you have gone too far inside or outside the borders on any click, you can simply hit Backspace and the most recent marker will be deleted.
STEP 9 Continue clicking your way around the exterior of the object until you reach your original first click marker. When you hover over your first click marker, it will turn orange, and clicking it will close the lasso, and your selection will be highlighted.
STEP 10 On the menu bar at the top of the screen, click Select and choose Invert from the dropdown menu.
STEP 11 Now hit the Delete key and watch the background disappear. By using invert, we've selected everything but our selection and deleted it. I still need to delete the little bit of background visible between Pov's body and left arm.
STEP 12 Go back up to menu and click Select, then None from the dropdown menu.
STEP 13 To delete an additional area, the gap in between the body and arm in this case, simply use the Free Select Tool create a clickpath as we did with Pov's outline. After finishing the clickpath, simply hit the Delete key, no need to Invert the selection this time. Click Select from the menu and None as we previously have done.
STEP 14 Click the blank space where the eye was earlier on the lower image icon. They eye icon will reappear, meaning that that this layer is visible. You should see something identical to your original image if you've done everything correctly so far.
STEP 15 Right-click the lower image icon on the right-hand side of the screen and select New Layer. Make sure the new layer is set to Fill with: Transparency, give it a name and click OK.
STEP 16 Select the Text Tool from the left-hand side and use to create some text in your new layer. This text is now situated behind @Sreypov but in front of everything else.
STEP 17 Right-click the icon for text layer and select Alpha to Selection from the dropdown menu. All the next will now be highlighted and ready for the next step.
STEP 18 Create a New Layer with a transparent background following the same methods we've already learned. Make sure the New Layer is under/behind the text layer.
STEP 19 Click Select and choose Grow, set to 6px and click OK. We now have a layer behind our text that is slightly larger.
STEP 20 Click Select and choose Grow, set to 6px and click OK. We now have a layer behind our text that is slightly larger.
STEP 21 Click the Bucket Fill Tool, select a color and click OK.
STEP 22 Click anywhere in your text outline to fill with your selected color. In this example, I have chosen black, which happens to highlight the yellow very well.
STEP 22 As I want to keep this tutorial as simple as possible, we can stop here, as this is a good first thumbnail style to try. Click on File and select Export As, then choose your preferred file and an output location, and voila, we are done.

As I want to keep this tutorial as simple as possible, we can stop here, as this is a good first thumbnail style to try.

GIMP is an easy to use and free program. Just running yourself through this tutorial will be enough to get you acquainted and comfortable with exploring the program further.