**In this video I’m going to share 10 tips for DaVinci Resolve that will instantly save you time, improve your workflow and help to raise the overall production value of your films. ** Tip #1 Timeline Recovery. We’ve all been there, you’re working on a complex edit and without noticing, you mess up something in your timeline.
You keep on grinding away only at the end to realise your mistake. ****Going back into your history might solve the mistake but it will also undo all your hard work and who has time for that? What if I told you that Resolve has been secretly backing up your timelines for you and going back is just about knowing where to find it.
If you have Resolve 18. 5 or 18. 6 it’s enabled by default.
Simply go to your timeline, right click and select restore timeline backup. You’ll have a variety of timestamps to choose from but the great thing is when you click on one, resolve will automatically create a separate timeline so you can still recover some alterations from your current timeline if you need to. A bonus tip here is to locate the timeline you’re working on in your media pool.
Simply go to timeline in the menu bar, scroll all the way to the bottom and select “Find Current Timeline in Media Pool”. Special thanks to Chris Roberts for this tip. Tip #2 Timeline Shortcuts.
Switching between timelines has never been easier. Instead of going to the media pool to search for your timeline, you can click this dropdown menu at the top and select the timeline of your choice. ****If you have dynamic project switching enabled you can even do this between projects by clicking the dropdown arrow on the project and viola, time saved!
Tip #3 Color Stabilizer. If you ever have to deal with a clip where the exposure changes midshot, this tool is a quick and easy fix without the need to manually keyframe your grade. I use this on clips where auto exposure was used or where the camera operator made an adjustment during a key part I want to use.
All you have to do is add the color stabiliser to a node. Tap live region analysis. Select Stabilize Brightness.
If there was a shift in white balance you can also select white balance. In your clip find the frame you are 100% happy with and you want the rest to conform to. Go to the Region of Analysis and choose selected area.
Find the area in your clip that you want to stabillize and draw the box over it. Next you want to track the analysis by hitting the play button. This will go through the entire clip and measure the data needed to do the necessary key frames.
The color stabiliser is only available in the Studio Version. Tip #4 Lightbox. This is one of the most underrated features in resolve.
I use it so often when grading that I made a shortcut for it. Mine is W but you can choose what works for you. Lightbox gives you a visual overview of your timeline and is the quickest way to jump between clips.
When you click on a clip and exit, that clip will be selected for grading. You can choose how much real estate you want to see for example if you zoom in all the way it’s easier to spot frames that do not match. Zooming out a bit will give you an overall picture of how colour flows in your project.
When you have the frame comparison feature turned on, you can also select multiple clips this way and going back will give you a comparison between the frames selected. If you’ve gotten this far I want to thank you for watching. I’m sharing a bonus tip at the end so make sure you stick around but I also want to mention that I finally started working on my own Colour Grading Course, something a lot of you have been asking for.
This will be unlike anything I’ve ever done here on Youtube so if you want to be notified make sure you sign up at the link below. Tip #5 Smart Reframe. The biggest headache of dealing with vertical video is having to reframe horizontal video especially when your subject is not staying in the centre of the frame.
****Using Resolves Neural AI engine you can let it intelligently reframe it for you instead of dealing with manual keyframes. In your inspector click on smart reframe and select one of 2 options, auto or reference point. I always try auto first because it does a great job on human subjects.
After a quick analysis your subject will stay in the centre without a dime of effort on your part. This does a much better job than I could do with keyframes and it only takes a few seconds to setup. If for some reason it’s not giving you the desirable frame you can try choosing a reference point.
Select the object or area you want to keep centred and the software will do the magic. Since it uses the Neural AI engine this feature is only available in the Studio version. Tip #6 Timeline Colours.
If you’re like me, you like to colour code your clips for easy referencing in the timeline. But what if you want to apply batch changes or move all clips with a specific color. Instead of trying to select each color manually you can simply go the the menu under timeline and choose “select clips with clip color” and pick the color of your choice.
In this example I wanted to update the color grade of all clips of me talking to the camera so I just quickly select all the clips with the color yellow and viola, I can apply the same grade without effort! Tip #7 Batch Audio Fades. Using fades & cross fades on your audio clips is a necessary step to remove pop and breath sounds between cuts.
Adding fades to new clips and transitions to adjacent clips makes your audio flow better but is a time consuming process. Instead of applying your crossfades individually, you can batch apply them to an entire timeline in an instant. In the Fairlight page go to the fairlight menu and select batch fade settings.
Select Fade In, Crossfade and Fade out. Uncheck the override existing boxes. For Fade in you want to keep it at Linear and select 3 Frames.
For Fade Out choose exponential fade and also 3 frames. For cross fades keep 2 frames and make sure it’s on equal power. To see how the effect works I’m going to apply it in an area where I have an ending clip, a beginning clip and adjacent clips.
Select the entire audio track you want to apply the fades to. Go to the fairlight menu and choose “Apply Batch Fades”. Viola, note how the relevant fades are applied to each clip.
The ending clip has an exponential fade out, the beginning has a linear fade in, and the adjacent clips have small crossfades. Amazing right? I got this tip from Chadwick from Creative Video Tips one of my favourite channels on Resolve.
He made an in depth video about it so if you’re not already subscribed go say Hi! Tip #8 Magic Mask. If there ever was a feature that would make me buy the studio version over the free version this would be it.
With Magic Mask you can very quickly and easily select objects and isolate them for individual grading pleasure. It does a fantastic job of understanding what is relevant in your selection and if for some reason it includes something irrelevant you simply draw a negative line over it and it will deselect it. In my short film Perseverance we had this POV shot from the helicopter and the hazy light made the environment look flat.
****A quick fix here is using Magic Mask to isolate the inside of the helicopter, inverting the mask to the outside and then making changes to the outside. Tracking the movement is is simple as pressing the play button forward and viola, the background is isolated perfectly without any form of halo or feathering. Tip #9 Highlight Clip in the media Pool.
Finding a selected clip in your timeline in the media pool is not exactly difficult but there’s a much quicker way to do it. Go to your preferences and under user select editing. Scroll down and select the option that says “always highlight current clip in the media pool”.
When you click on any clip in your timeline, it will automatically highlight it in the media pool. This is great if you want to explore adjacent clips without having to go search for it in the bins. Tip #10 De-Flicker.
Another awesome way to save footage that seems ruined. If for any reason there’s a flicker in your footage, tweaking this plug-in could save it. From time lapses to flickering on a screen this effect can work wonders.
Just the other day I slowed down a video using the LINKED IN DESCRIPTION. Although the results are remarkable it creates this weird flicker and guess what solved it! And now for that bonus tip!
If like me you enjoy using luts you can actually create a shortcut to your favourite luts without having to go and choose it in the dropdown menu every time. In the color tab, simply go to the LUT window next to your gallery and toggle the small star in the right corner. ****This will add the LUT to your favourites folder which you can immediately select from the main dropdown menu.
And that’s it. if you have any more questions let me know in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer. Thanks so much for watching and I’ll see you in the next one!
