the title is a bit confusing, i know, but if you have a better idea, let me know! lol

so, what does this guide do?
usually your screenshot gallery shows the whole picture or some parts of it like this

as you can see, if your image is centered it's fine, but if the focus is not in the center, it will look weird..

would be nice if we can focus some part of the image as the focus right?
maybe something like this

when the title is blade, feet, instead of showing random stuff, we can make the thumbnail show that thing as is!

1. from Steam Client > view > Recordings & Screenshots
   
   
2. Right Click on the image, pick Show on Disk
   
   
   
3. in File Explorer, copy the image you want to upload to thumbnails folder, pick the Replace File
   
   
4. open the thumbnails folder, right click that image and pick Edit with Photos
   tips: if there are a lot of images in the thumbnails folder and you have a hard time finding that image, right click and sort by size
   tips2: Windows Photos is native application of windows 11, if you are not using Windows 11, or there is no option to edit with Photos, you can use edit with Paint, or other 3rd party tools ie. photoshop, xnview, etc
   
   
5. at the bottom, click the free button
   
   
   
6. in my experience steam gallery is using closest to 2:3 or 3:2 ratio most of the time, so pick those depending if your image has landscape or portrait orientation. otherwise the square ratio is also a good and safe pick
   
   
   
7. if you drag the white handler at the sides, you can control which part to crop, and if you drag the center part, you can move around the part to crop
   
   
   
8. when you are done, click the blue button on top right Save option > Save
   tips: make sure the thumbnail image size is of lower res, since the thumbnail file size is also added to our cloud storage limit (19GB total). There is no need to put a high res thumbnail since it's only for preview. Feel free to check out my other guide to resize it in a flash
   https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3501550846
   
   
9. that's it, you can now share that image to Steam, and when you check your Screenshot Gallery, it will show that focused thumbnail!
   

Thanks a ton for reading — hope this guide helped you out! 😊
I'm still learning the ropes when it comes to both writing and the process itself, so feedback (tips, critiques, wild rants) is more than welcome! 👍

If your input really levels up the guide, I’ll absolutely credit you. Want to be a contributor? Slide into my DMs or drop a comment — let’s team up! 🤝

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