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Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures or
video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...
s, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text
index Index (: indexes or indices) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index'' * The Index, an item on the Halo Array in the ...
does for words. In the age of
digital image A digital image is an image composed of picture elements, also known as pixels, each with '' finite'', '' discrete quantities'' of numeric representation for its intensity or gray level that is an output from its two-dimensional functions f ...
s, visual
search engine A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...
s and image-organizing programs normally use thumbnails, as do most modern operating systems or desktop environments, such as
Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
,
macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
,
KDE KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that enable collaborative work on its projects. Its products include the KDE Plasma gra ...
(
Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
) and
GNOME A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...
(
Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
). On web pages, they also avoid the need to download larger files unnecessarily.


Implementation

Thumbnails are ideally implemented on
web page A web page (or webpage) is a World Wide Web, Web document that is accessed in a web browser. A website typically consists of many web pages hyperlink, linked together under a common domain name. The term "web page" is therefore a metaphor of pap ...
s as separate, smaller copies of the original image, in part because one purpose of a thumbnail image on a web page is to reduce bandwidth and download time. Some
web design Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; user interface design (UI design); authoring, including standardised code a ...
ers produce thumbnails with
HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
or client-side scripting that makes the user's browser shrink the picture, rather than use a smaller copy of the image. This results in no saved bandwidth, and the visual quality of browser resizing is usually less than ideal. Displaying a significant part of the picture instead of the full frame can allow the use of a smaller thumbnail while maintaining recognizability. For example, when thumbnailing a full-body
portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...
of a person, it may be better to show the face slightly reduced than an indistinct figure. However, this may mislead the viewer about what the image contains, so is more suited to artistic presentations than searching or catalogue browsing. Thumbnail makes for smaller, more easily viewable pages and also allows viewers to have control over exactly what they want to see. In 2002, the court in the US case '' Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation'' ruled that it was
fair use Fair use is a Legal doctrine, doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to bal ...
for
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
search engines to use thumbnail images to help web users find what they seek.


Etymology

The word "thumbnail" is a reference to the human thumbnail and alludes to the small size of an image or picture, comparable to the size of the human thumbnail. While the earliest use of the word in this sense dates back to the 17th century, the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms is reported to have documented that the expression first appears in the mid-19th century to refer to 'a drawing the size of the thumbnail'. The word was then used figuratively, in both
noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...
and
adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...
form, to refer to anything small or concise, such as a biographical essay. The use of the word "thumbnail" in the specific context of computer images as 'a small graphical representation, as of a larger graphic, a page layout, etc.' appears to have been first used in the 1980s.


Dimensions

*The Denver Public Library Digitization and Cataloguing Program produces thumbnails that are 160
pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a Raster graphics, raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, p ...
s in the long dimension. *The
California Digital Library The California Digital Library (CDL) was founded by the University of California in 1997. Under the leadership of then UC President Richard C. Atkinson, the CDL's original mission was to forge a better system for scholarly information management ...
Guidelines for Digital Images recommend 150-200 pixels for each dimension. * Picture Australia requires thumbnails to be 150 pixels in the long dimension. *The
International Dunhuang Project The International Dunhuang Project (IDP) is an international collaborative effort to conserve, catalogue and Digital preservation, digitise manuscripts, printed texts, paintings, textiles and artefacts from the Mogao caves at the Western Chinese c ...
Standards for Digitization and Image Management specifies a height of 96 pixels at 72 ppi. *
YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
recommends the resolution of 1280×720 (with a minimum width of 640 pixels) with an aspect ratio of 16:9. * DeviantArt automatically produces thumbnails that are maximum 150 pixels in the long dimension. *
Flickr Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...
automatically produces thumbnails that are a maximum 240 pixels in the long dimension, or smaller 75×75 pixels. It also applies unsharp mask to them. * Picasa automatically produces thumbnails that are a maximum 144 pixels in the long dimension, or 160×160 pixels album thumbnails. The term '' vignette'' is sometimes used to describe an image that is smaller than the original, larger than a thumbnail, but no more than 250 pixels in the long dimension. Directors,
storyboard artist A storyboard artist (sometimes called a story artist or visualizer) creates storyboards for advertising agencies and film productions. Work A storyboard artist visualizes stories and sketches frames of the story. Quick pencil drawings and mar ...
s and
graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art that involves creating visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdisciplinary branch of ...
ers, as well as other kinds of visual artists, use the term "thumbnail sketch" to describe a small drawing on paper (usually part of a group) used to explore multiple ideas quickly. Thumbnail sketches are similar to
doodle A doodle is a drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be composed of random and abstract art, abstract lines or shapes, generally w ...
s, but may include as much detail as a small sketch. A "comprehensive" thumbnail sketch of a printed project, more or less to final size, is often referred to as a "comp", and can be highly detailed, with production information included. The purpose of thumbnails was to visualize the ideas in a miniature form, similar to an illustration shorthand. Often, the old school animators used this process to quickly jot down the key "poses" that were part of an animation sequence. These compact drawing were then pinned up above the animation table, within easy view. As the animator worked through creating the final drawings of each pose, the thumbnails helped to keep the original ideation relevant.


See also

* Image organizer *
Contact print A contact print is a photographic image produced from Photographic film, film; sometimes from a film negative (photography), negative, and sometimes from a film positive or paper negative. In a darkroom an exposed and developed piece of film or ...
, a
film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...
cognate of the thumbnail * Thumbshot


References

{{Authority control Computer graphics Graphic design