I'm wondering. What makes the best thumb nail image? Showing the whole image, or showing the best part of the image? What do YOU look for? The most detailed parts, the lighting? Or is this one of those things which "you must find your own path" for?

I can talk only about my experience: it depends. I usually prefer to thumb the whole image, but if it's too full of details, sometime I go for a section of it.

--stefano sight, if u gotta a full image with alot of detail and alot to looks at, crop of a section of it for your thumbnail. make sure that its kind of recognizable. if u have a broad panned-out image, its good to just use the whole image as a thumb.

Someone said in here a while back that you could render your image at thumbnail size then you won't lose too much in the jpg conversion, I only mention it cause I did this for the first time on an image I've just finished (not posted yet) and it did look much better than the usual shrink to fit in PS. It doesn't answer your question but it's a good idea. Catlin I also saved for web for the first time and got a neat size of image without much loss of quality.

I usually make a tumb of the whole image. Most important is that a tumb shows eiter the full scene or a very nice detail shot. If it sticks out between the rest it'll be most succesfull. Thumbnails that inplicate nudity will get more hits too.

Experience shows that thumbnails showing the whole image get less hits than those showing tantalising details.

really..;)One of these days, I'm gonna have to test that. Also, a suggestive title (particulary with the unclothed female frame) seems to give a 'boost'. I usually just make a reduced copy from an old program called Graphic Workshop Professional (180*180), and leave it at that.

I think I can concur on that Phantast. Still I prefer to have the whole image for mine. Personal choices I guess.

In my gallery, 7/10 of my most viewed pictures show the full image in the thumbnail, although the one with most viewings shows only part. 8/10 of my least viewed pictures show only part, but the one with least viewings shows the whole image. I doubt that my gallery is representative of the site as a whole, but it would be interesting to find out the empirical facts. My feeling was always that a clipping got more views than the whole image, but it seems I'm wrong at least as far as my images go.

I don't really post for viewings, ratings, or votes. I put up my art, and the thumb is like a "Prologue", or a lead in. If the image is cool enough, it will get hits. If the thumbnail misleads, then it leaves you feeling betrayed. The thumb should generate interest in the real image, so MrDodobird, go with whatever works for that specific image!

If you want evidence, I cite the experience at Renderotica, which moved to a new software system whereby all thumbnails were automatically generated and showed the full image. Views on all images went down dramatically. It's true that cropped thumbs can lead to the experience of "Mm - looks interesting - let's view - oh, yukk!", which increases the number of hits on an image, but does nothing for viewer satisfaction.