YouTube 2.0 Template: Create a Custom Background for YouTube Channels

There must be hundreds of tutorials online for creating custom backgrounds for your YouTube Channel. I spent hours (days?) searching and sifting through tutorials that were either spam, had broken links, were poor quality, and/or provided Adobe Photoshop templates that didn’t properly fit the constraints of a YouTube Channel. I finally stumbled on the tutorial below from Tech Support Gone Bad, a great YouTube Channel for new product reviews and technical tutorials.

The tutorial provides an Adobe Photoshop template that fits nearly perfectly with the current YouTube “2.0″ Channel Layout. The narrator does a great job of walking through the customization process, although I suggest having a working knowledge of Photoshop to save yourself some frustration.

I used this template and tutorial myself to create the current YouTube Channel background for CoZiggy. Here are the steps I followed to create it:

1. Downloaded the template file at octosites.com/downloads/ytbg2.psd
2. Opened the file in Adobe Photoshop CS4 (you can use any recent version)
3. Re-sized the black box in “layer 3″ by shrinking it about 20 pixels on either side, which made a tighter fit around the channel content (go to View > Show Rulers and eyeball the re-size)
4. Inserted a black-to-white gradient from top to bottom on the “background” layer (illustrated in the video)
5. Filter > Distort > Ocean Ripple for the background effect
6. Added the CoZiggy logo on the right side of the page and the text and images on the left side
7. Created a separate 1600 pixel wide white “serrated” edge, then inserted this at the top of the page
8. Deleted the “white area” layer to make the top serrated edge look fluid with the top menu bar on YouTube Channel pages. Check out the CoZiggy Channel to see what I mean.
9. Added a white color overlay to “layer 3″ (the black box in the middle)
10. Decreased the size of the outer glow to 5 px
11. File > Save for Web & Devices and saved the final design as a JPEG (use the highest image quality while keeping the file size under 256KB)
12. Uploaded the final design to CoZiggy’s Channel

Michael is the owner and administrator of www.CoZiggy.com, an online source for social media video tutorials and social marketing inspiration.

Related posts:

1. Create a Glossy CSS Menu Menus are a very important part of contemporary web design,...
2. Create Realistic Water Drops in Photoshop A quick tutorial to send you on the right path...
3. Create a Simple Javascript Clock When you think “time” for a website, you automatically think...

5 Responses to “YouTube 2.0 Template: Create a Custom Background for YouTube Channels”

1. Mandy says:

   June 5, 2010 at 8:18 pm

   Awesome. Had to make a few tweaks like you did but it fit really well after that.
2. Graphstock says:

   June 13, 2010 at 6:22 pm

   This is the first time when i see such a tutorial. never knew that youtube allows custom backgrounds on channels
   Thank you
3. Nick says:

   July 12, 2010 at 11:14 pm

   Finally the real truth. I too spent a bit-o-time trying to find a good background and other imagery – and really hit some spammy sites. Good to see there are still a few places n the ‘net keeping it clean and tidy – cheers and great post!
4. Swiftor says:

   May 1, 2011 at 1:31 pm

   good stuff, finally I can spruce up my channel! would have loved a PSD of your final background after the steps were taken
5. mohammad says:

   December 29, 2011 at 11:33 pm

   awsome but the link isn’t working!