How To Manage And Customize Thumbnails

Summary

Sometimes you want or need to adjust the thumbnail for your assets. This article explains the step-by-step process for customizing and deleting thumbnails for assets in your bank, including video assets. You can also request that your thumbnails be set to secure so that they are only visible to those with the correct credentials. 

Who?

This feature/solution requires Customer Support to enable, but then individual permissions can be done by the Bynder Admin.

Don't yet have Bynder? Start Here!

Once they are enabled, a user must have the edit assets permission to customize thumbnails.

Why?

Thumbnails let users understand the asset's content without opening it. Customizing thumbnails lets you control what's shown when quickly browsing your asset bank. For video assets, Bynder automatically selects the first frame as your thumbnail. Customizing video asset thumbnails lets you preset a timecode for the thumbnail frame, or customize thumbnails video by video. 

How?

What File Types Are Able To Have Custom Thumbnails?

  • Image: .jpg, .png, .bmp, .tif, .gif, .ai, .psd, .indd
  • Video: .mp4, .mov, .avi, .3gp, .m4v, .wmv
  • Audio: .mp3, .m4a
  • Misc: ZIP files, .XML, .doc, .ppt, .xlsm

Adding A Custom Video Thumbnail

  1. Click the asset you want to update.
  2. Open the Edit tab.
  3. Expand the Generate new thumbs tab.
  4. Select the frame you prefer as a thumbnail with your mouse and click Current video position.generate-new-thumbs.png

Note: You can also automate the video thumbnail generation so that you do not have to manually change it for every video. Example: You can decide that a thumbnail should be created from the screen that appears after 4 seconds of the video have passed.

How To Add A Custom Thumbnail To Other Asset Types

  1. Navigate to Assets.
  2. Select the file in which you would like to edit the thumbnail.
  3. Click edit and scroll down to the Custom thumbnail option.
  4. Click + and select a file from your Desktop.
  5. Click Save and refresh your page; the update can take several moments.

Note: You cannot crop or select a focal point on a thumbnail, i.e., you cannot specify the portion of the asset that becomes the thumbnail. You must update a custom thumbnail if you update an asset. All derivatives are created from the original image. 

How To Manage Thumbnail Background Transparency

When uploading assets with a transparent background, the asset's background appears as a grey-and-white checkerboard. You can adjust this by contacting your Customer Success Contact and specifying which file extensions should have transparent thumbnails and which should not.

Note: Transparent thumbnails for TIFF files are not supported when the file includes transparent clipping paths, which often occurs when the TIFF file is saved in Adobe Photoshop. The TIFF file contains more than one alpha channel or a custom alpha channel. Additionally, the ExtraSamples metadata field of the TIFF file can only have one of the following two values: associated alpha or unassociated alpha. The value unspecified is not supported.

How To Delete A Custom Thumbnail

  1. Navigate to Assets.
  2. Select the file in which you would like to edit the thumbnail.
  3. Click edit and scroll down to the Custom thumbnail.
  4. Click the trash icon to remove the custom thumbnail.
customthumb_newassetcard.png

Note: Custom Thumbnails will automatically be removed when you update/ add a new version of a file.

FAQs

Why are my thumbnails not generating?

Make sure you add a custom thumbnail to assets with the correct file type.

Why can't I customize my thumbnails?

Make sure you have the correct permissions. Remember that you must have Support enable this feature before you will have access, even if you are a Bynder Admin.

What if I don't want to upload thumbnails?

Thumbnails for most file types will automatically generate, this option is best for users that wish to customize the thumbnail of the asset.

Why are the default derivative URLs not updated instantaneously? 
After assigning a custom thumbnail to an asset via the UI or the API, it will take approximately 24 hours to invalidate the URLs of the default derivatives. The preview in the DAM will be updated instantly.

Related Articles

What File Types Are Supported For Upload And Preview?

Level: Proficient

Proficient-level articles are for users who have some prior Bynder knowledge. These articles require you to know the basics and may also require higher-level portal rights to accomplish the task outlined within the article. 

Updated