My AI thumbnail workflow

Spent some time this past weekend building out a full AI YouTube thumbnail pipeline from video → 234 thumbnail options (little excessive)

1. Find a face: Raw video → extract & filter frames → filter for shots based on eyes, framing, etc. → classify using @Cloudflare CLEF-flash → contact sheet → pick the best ones

2. Assemble thumbnail: My picks → 2x upscale via @topazlabs high fidelity v2 → references via benchmark.social → my own ideas for the framing → thumbnail angles and text options → different layouts with @paper = hundreds of versions

3. A/B/C test on YouTube Studio

It’s a bit janky right now but this is a great way to see tons of options at once.