I remember opening DaVinci Resolve for the very first time. The questions I had were, “How do I do anything?” “How do I edit a video?” “What’s the video editing process?” “What’s the workflow?” Like almost everyone else on the planet, I wasn’t too interested in learning the ins and outs of the program. I’m more of the type of person who opens an application and simply begins using it. When I get stuck and would like to know how to accomplish a particular task, I do a quick Google search for how do I cut a video clip or how do I export my video. I search for answers to questions like that.
FYI – it’s almost always better to take a course (or read tutorials such as these) to learn how to use an application such as Davinci Resolve. Yes, it’ll take some time, but it’ll be much more worth it in the end. You can fumble through asking random questions all your life and never actually become proficient in the answers. Or, you can learn things properly and become an expert. You’d be surprised at how quickly one can become an expert in something.
In this tutorial, I’d like to offer a very high level overview of the DaVinci Resolve workflow. The application is set up to work very logically. In order to learn the workflow, you’ll need to know where a few things reside.
DaVinci Resolve Page Buttons
If you launch the application and open a new project, you’ll see a few buttons that run across the bottom of the workspace. These are called page buttons. This is what they look like.
As you roll over each one with your mouse pointer, you’ll see the button icons change color. And if you click on each button, you’ll see the live page button background change to black. Also, if you right click on any button, you’ll see a small menu appear. The options in the menu give you to the ability to view the buttons with both icons and labels or only icons. Displaying only icons will save a tad bit of room in the workspace.
DaVinci Resolve Pages
There are seven pages in all. The links (or buttons) to access each page run across the bottom of the DaVinci workspace. In the following sections, I’ll briefly discuss what each page can accomplish. Remember, this is a very broad overview. In subsequent tutorials, I’ll delve much more deeply into each page’s capabilities. Regarding the overall workflow, as you edit, you’ll basically jump through these pages. After importing some media into your project, you’ll use the Cut and Edit pages mostly. If you’ve got effects to add, you’ll use the Fusion page. If you’d like to edit some audio, you’ll use either the Edit or Fairlight page. This won’t be a linear process. You may need to go from one page to another and then back again.
Media Page
If you’ve ever used Adobe Bridge or Lightroom, you’ll be familiar with the DaVinci Resolve Media page. It’s essentially a media organizer, so you can import video files, audio files, photo files, etc… and then organize everything by size and date and also add metadata to each file. You may also prepare your footage for use on other pages as well as organize your files into bins that you can create on the fly. Editors (people) generally take advantage of the Media page if they’re working with larger projects that include dozens or hundreds of media assets that need organizing. If you’re editing a video that contains three clips, you wouldn’t necessarily need to take advantage of this page.
Cut Page
When I first learned about the Cut page, I came to the conclusion that it was a lighter version of the Edit page (the Edit page is where all the heavy lifting is done). While the Cut page was created for fast and streamlined video editing, it also contains very targeted tools that are meant to help you work faster and more productively. Think tools that allow for source tape, dual timelines, fast review, smart editing, sync bin, source overwrite – some of these are perfect for multicam projects. The tools contained on the Cut page are meant for speed. Everything that doesn’t help with speed will be contained on another page while only what matters is contained on this one.
Edit Page
Resolve’s Edit page is where most of the heavy lifting takes place. You can easily drag and drop media assets, such as video clips, audio, and images to the timeline. On the Edit page, you can view two different video previews; one you can trim and the other as a timeline preview. You may trim video and audio, customize your keyboard shortcuts, add text, transitions, effects, and animations. You can also manage and organize your media assets on this page. You’ll find that you spend most of your time working in the Edit page.
Fusion Page
The Fusion page is where you work on visual effects and motion graphics. This is a big page. It’ll take some getting used to and there is a learning curve. Once you figure out the process though, doing what you need to do will be like second nature. On this page, you can create and add beautiful cinematic effects to your videos. You can also create stunning motion graphics. This may be new for some previous users of other video editing software, but Resolve takes advantage of what’s called a node based workflow that can intuitively guide you through the process of your creations. Instead of stacking layers on top of one another Resolve decided to go with nodes. Basically, you have your beginning clip and your ending clip. In between those clips are your enhancements, contained in nodes. Don’t worry, I’ll be writing up many tutorials on this topic, as it’s fairly large. The Fusion page also contains quite a few 2D and 3D tools for these types of enhancements as well as editors for animations. Resolve boasts point, planar, and 3D tracking to rotoscope and keying tools for creating photorealistic composites, stunning animated titles, 3D particle systems and more,
Color Page
This is another huge page and Resolve is actually used in Hollywood as its most advanced color corrector. The application has color corrected and color graded some very high end movies and television shows. It’s very popular, so you know you’re in good hands with this program. Being so popular, you’d think it’s intimidating and difficult to use. It really isn’t. Yes, there’s obviously a learning curve, but if you’ve ever color corrected in Adobe Photoshop, you should be familiar with the interface. Inside of the Color page in Resolve, you can adjust contrast, temperature, midtone detail, saturation, and much more. There are tons of grading tools, both primary and secondary. There are also advanced HDR grading tools as well. If you’re interested in bringing the colors to life in your production, this is the page you want to use. Remember though, the Color page is about adjusting color on a clip-by-clip basis. It doesn’t set the color for the entire movie. You can adjust color in multiple clips at a time though.
Fairlight Page
The Fairlight page in Resolve is truly astonishing. It’s all about editing your audio. You’re going to be amazed at how deeply you can edit said audio in this application. The available tools are truly pro level and if you’ve ever produced sound in a studio before, you’ll feel right at home. To have this level of post production audio editing alongside top-of-the-line video editing, effects, and color editing, for free, can’t be beat. On the Fairlight page, you can edit up to 2,000 tracks at a time with realtime effects, an equalizer, and dynamics processing. There are dozens of tools that can help with adding and mixing effects, removing anomalies, and making edits. You can even mix and master stereo 5.1 and 7.1 within the same project. Similar to the Media page though, taking advantage of the Fairlight page is primarily reserved for those who’ve got a lot of audio to edit. Since the Edit page can also edit audio, if you’ve only got a few sound assets and if your project is a simple one, you might want to do what needs doing right in the Edit page.
Deliver Page
Use the Deliver page to render and export your final projects in the format of your choosing. It’s a very handy page that allows you to render in all different formats and with various settings – even to preset formats and settings. You can render to post on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and many more channels. You can even stack exports, meaning, you can queue your jobs with various settings and then render them all in sequence. The benefit of doing this is that you can leave your computer alone to do all its rendering work without you there. Basically, the Deliver page renders and exports your final projects.
I hope I did a decent job at giving you a very broad overview of each page in DaVinci Resolve. To learn more about Resolve, be sure to visit my DaVinci Resolve Tutorials page.
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