DaVinci Resolve is a video editing and post-production application for Windows, macOS and Linux. It combines timeline editing, color grading, visual effects and sound mixing within a shared project, and also includes tools for organizing and grading still photos. Its workspaces, called pages, let an editor move from assembling footage to correcting a shot or mixing its dialogue while continuing to work on the same sequence.
Bringing media into DaVinci Resolve
The Media page brings camera files, sound recordings and graphics into the project’s media pool. Clips can be previewed before import, grouped in bins and given metadata such as scene, shot and take information. Smart Bins gather material according to metadata rules, while Power Bins hold reusable assets across projects. Bins and metadata help locate a take without renaming the original files.
DaVinci Resolve can align separately recorded sound with video using matching timecode or audio waveforms. Manual alignment is also available when those methods cannot establish the right relationship. The synchronized sources can then be edited together without first rendering a replacement video file.
Editing on the Cut and Edit pages
Cut and Edit offer two views of the editing work. On the Cut page, Source Tape presents the clips in a bin as one continuous strip to browse. Its dual timelines show the whole program above a closer view of the current edit, so moving to another part of the sequence does not require giving up the detailed trimming view.
The Edit page uses a track-based timeline with separate source and sequence viewers. In and out points select the portion of a source clip to use.
The main edit and trim operations:
- Insert: makes space by shifting later material.
- Overwrite: replaces material at the playhead.
- Ripple trimming: changes a clip’s duration and moves the following edits.
- Roll: adjusts the boundary between two shots while keeping their combined duration unchanged.
- Slip editing: changes which frames appear inside an existing clip’s timeline position.
For multicamera recordings, DaVinci Resolve synchronizes angles using timecode, sound or selected points. The multicam viewer displays the angles together for switching during playback. Those choices remain editable: an angle can be replaced and a cut trimmed after the initial pass.
Titles, subtitles and transitions sit alongside the footage. Clip transformations and effect settings can change over time through keyframes, with curves controlling how a movement accelerates or slows. Retime controls similarly vary playback speed within a shot, rather than applying only one speed to its entire length.
Color grading
The Color page separates broad image correction from adjustments to particular areas. Primary wheels alter the shadows, midtones and highlights, while offset changes the whole image. Curves give finer control over tonal response or relationships such as the saturation of a selected hue. Scopes show the image’s brightness and color distribution, providing measurements alongside the visual preview.
Qualifiers select regions by hue, saturation or luminance. Power Windows instead use shapes drawn around an area, with softness controls for blending the adjustment into its surroundings. Tracking can move a window with an object through the shot, keeping a localized correction attached as the picture changes.
DaVinci Resolve builds grades from connected nodes. A balancing correction can occupy one node, a selected region another and a creative treatment a third. This keeps the operations separately adjustable within the grade. Gallery stills retain grades for reuse and provide reference images when comparing shots across a scene.
Fusion compositing
Fusion constructs effects as a node graph inside the project. Source images feed into operations such as transforms, blurs and merges; a merge combines foreground and background images, while a mask limits where an operation appears. The connections expose the order in which those elements form the finished shot.
This arrangement supports tasks such as replacing a green-screen background, attaching a graphic to moving footage or animating a title. The Delta Keyer samples the background color and provides controls for refining the resulting matte and its edges. Planar tracking follows a flat surface’s movement and perspective, allowing replacement artwork to fit a moving sign or screen.
Text and 3D elements can be animated with keyframes and spline curves. Fusion compositions can also become reusable title or transition templates, with selected controls exposed to the Edit page so that editors can change text or other permitted settings without rebuilding the effect.
Fairlight audio
Fairlight handles the soundtrack as editable clips, tracks and buses. Clip gain and fades adjust individual recordings; channel equalizers and dynamics processors shape the sound of entire tracks. Automation records changes to levels, panning and effects so that they play back with the picture.
Its repair effects address different problems: a de-esser reduces strong sibilants, a de-hummer targets electrical hum, and noise reduction can learn a noise sample for processing the recording. Elastic Wave changes the timing of speech or effects without changing pitch, allowing sections of sound to be aligned more closely with the picture.
DaVinci Resolve also records voice-over and replacement dialogue. Inputs are assigned to tracks, and additional takes can occupy layers for comparison and assembly. The ADR tools associate replacement lines with dialogue cues, text prompts and recording countdowns.
Still photos
The Photo page organizes images into albums and provides exposure, white balance and color controls for still photography. RAW support includes files from Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon and Sony cameras, as well as iPhone ProRAW. Cropping, rotation and reframing work from the original image dimensions and can be revised without overwriting the source.
Photos can use the Color page’s nodes, curves, qualifiers and Power Windows. Tags, ratings and metadata help organize the collection, while alternate grade versions allow different treatments of the same image. Selected photographs or whole albums can be exported to formats including JPEG, PNG, HEIF and TIFF, with controls for output resolution, quality and compression.
Rendering files and the Studio edition
Quick Export uses presets to create a finished file, while the Deliver page exposes the video and audio settings for a particular output. Jobs can contain video and sound together, video alone or audio alone. Multiple timelines, clips or delivery variants can be added to the render queue and processed as a batch.
The free edition supports finishing up to Ultra HD at 60 frames per second. DaVinci Resolve Studio expands format and processing options and adds tools such as Magic Mask, Speed Warp, voice isolation and advanced image noise reduction. Studio also supplies additional effects and advanced HDR and immersive-audio workflows. Codec and hardware-acceleration support depend on the operating system and edition.
Shared projects
Project libraries allow editors, colorists, effects artists and sound engineers to work on the same production. Automatic locking protects bins, timelines or clips while another person is changing them. Timeline comparison shows additions, removals and trimming changes for review and merging.
A private Project Server or Blackmagic Cloud can host the shared project library. The team must also share or synchronize the associated media. Linked proxy files provide smaller editing copies of camera originals, so editing can use lighter files while the project retains links to the source footage. Cloud hosting and storage are separate services from the desktop application’s free editing tools.
