For those who don’t know the tool: Autodesk Flame is the finishing suite that lives between conform, comp, and delivery, with companion stations like Flare and render muscle via Burn for facilities that enjoy sleeping sometimes.

The big three: metadata, scribbles, depth

Flame Family 2027 puts a spotlight on three things that tend to break at the worst possible moment: clip metadata, frame-level notes, and depth workflows. The metadata work targets frame-based metadata keys and keeps them intact from import through export. Annotations land as a practical review tool. Flame Family 2027 can add annotations to frames in the Player or in a Viewport, and it can also display the list of annotations on the current frame. Machine learning shows up as a Depth map feature. Flame Family 2027 can generate a Depth map using internal or external machine learning models.

Metadata that survives the trip

Flame Family 2027 treats metadata as something that should survive real production, not just an import dialogue. In Batch, a Metadata node can view and modify the metadata of a clip. Open Clip can define metadata keys and values to be ignored or modified on a per-feed basis, which gives facilities a way to standardise what comes in and how it gets normalised before it spreads everywhere.

Tokens get a larger role in that same cleanup story. Flame Family 2027 can define Custom Tokens and also limit the display of resolved tokens to a chosen number of characters. Preferences can set Custom Tokens to be used throughout the application, and Centralised Components can deploy system-based Custom Tokens across a facility using a dedicated workflow. That combination aims straight at consistency: one naming plan, one token vocabulary, fewer surprises at export time.

There are also Python API additions tied to the new metadata workflow, aimed at facilities that build glue code around ingest, naming, and publishing. The exact scope of those additions is not specified anywhere I could find it.

One detail worth calling out for day-to-day operators: Flame Family 2027 adds context-menu copy and paste for characters in text fields, including Copy Text, Cut, Paste Text, and Delete, plus a Paste Text option when nothing is selected. Dialogs with multiple text fields can also use Tab and Shift + Tab to move between fields, as long as one field is already in editing mode. None of this sells a subscription, but all of it reduces small daily friction that adds up.

About a third of the way in, the mteadata story boils down to this: fewer per-shot fixes and fewer one-off scripts to keep identifiers, flags, and frame-level tags from vanishing mid-pipeline.

Annotations that behave like a real tool

Annotations in Flame Family 2027 are not limited to a single panel or a single kind of workflow. Artists can add annotations to frames in the Player or in a Viewport. Explorer can access a list of Markers and can also display the list of annotations on the current frame. Snapshot can include annotations, which helps when review happens outside the application and you still want the note to travel with the image. Also: They are somewhat accessible via Python, but so far only “.has_annotations” and “.clear_annotations()“. That is a start, but not a full integration into the overarching pipline that keeps the added Memes from Prep intact until delivery.

Effects also gets marker support: Markers and Segment Markers can be added from the Effects environment. That is a quiet workflow bridge between building looks and keeping editorial or review signposts in sync.

Keyboard shortcuts shift a bit to accommodate the new annotation layer. In the Flame keyboard shortcut profile, Delete or Backspace is assigned to Delete. Tracking shortcuts change too: Tracking Delete Current KeyFrame and Go To Previous in Action, GMask Tracer, and Image move from Delete or Backspace to Shift + Delete or Backspace. Search also changes: F12 no longer opens Search; it now opens Toggle Annotations Display instead. Space + Tab still opens Search, and F16 can be used on macOS.

Tangent panel users get new mapper functions for annotations. Tangent Mapper adds Annotations control for toggling the Annotations layer display, plus navigation functions for previous and next annotation. Data management functions are also added, including Clear Unreferenced Cache for the current project and all projects.

Depth maps, now with fewer excuses

Depth maps via machine learning arrive as a production feature in Flame Family 2027.

A Depth map can be generated using internal or external machine learning models. The Tools workflow can generate a Depth Map using a machine learning model, then create a matte from that Depth Map inside a Selective. This positions depth as an artist-facing selection primitive, not just a technical curiosity.

Let’s quote the documentation: New machine-learning-based models are available as Analysis Type options to generate depth data. ML Depth Indoor and ML Depth Outdoor are internal machine learning models, while Load Model allows an external ONNX depth extraction model to be loaded.

The Documentation does not specify which machine learning models exactly are included (or at least, I couldn’t find it), which external model formats are supported, or what hardware constraints apply. Even without those details, the intended use is clear: build depth, turn it into mattes, and iterate quickly.

Like any ML feature, you will still want to test it on your own footage, your own lens mess, and your own deliverables before trusting it in production. That includes checking edges, temporal stability, and failure cases on smoke, hair, reflections, and anything else that enjoys humiliating clever algorithms.

Conform, color, and the rest of the plumbing

Flame Family 2027 also invests in pipeline plumbing, the kind that keeps facilities from inventing new swear words. Conform can import OTIO files in the Conform environment, via OpenTimelineIO. That gives conform artists a more direct path for timeline interchange when the upstream system exports OTIO.

Color management updates land via OpenColorIO, updated to version 2.5.1. The Sources do not describe behavioral changes from that update, only the version number.

Project management adds OpenEXR uncompressed as a Cache and Renders format for floating-point content. For facilities that lean on float caches, this adds another option alongside existing cache formats.

Configuration and OS support expands to include Rocky Linux 9.7. DKU 21.0.0 is listed as Rocky Linux only and includes support for Rocky Linux 9.7 and an updated NVIDIA driver. The Sources do not specify the exact driver version.

Hardware I O support gets AVIO updates with updated AJA and Blackmagic Design drivers. Service Monitor gains new Diagnostics intended to help troubleshoot configuration.

User settings import changes affect Setup. User settings can be imported on a new system before the application is launched for the first time, and importing a user profile overwrites all existing user settings.

Backburner 2027.0 is a minor update with fixes and no visible changes for end users, via Autodesk Backburner. Burn can be installed on macOS workstations, which expands where that render companion can live.

As always, new features and new workflows deserve a proper test pass on real show material before they touch a live delivery schedule.

The post Autodesk Flame 2027: metadata and depth maps first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Getting your bearings: Switching from Premiere Pro to DaVinci Resolve

Getting started in a new Software can be tough. I usually just want to get started with my edit without having to look for the right buttons to achieve what I have in mind. In the previous article, we looked at setting up your project, importing and organising media and generating proxies to get you ready for your first edit really fast. If you’re already set, the following will give you input on where you’ll find everything in Resolve to get your first cut done.

Get your Project settings right.

After you’ve imported and organised all your footage, you probably want to start editing right away. Still, there’s one more thing we need to do beforehand: set up the project’s framerate and resolution. Unlike Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve uses a single frame rate for the whole project. This will be the framerate all your Timelines will automatically be created with. When importing footage, this will be automatically played at the Timeline’s speed. If you, e.g., insert 50fps in a 25fps timeline, Resolve will drop frames to make it play in real-time. It’s important to know that after creating your first Timeline in a project, the current set project framerate will be locked. But don’t worry: although the project uses a single frame rate, it’s still possible to create timelines with different frame rates in that project. To set the project frames to the project settings, click the gearwheel icon in the bottom-right corner of the project, and the master settings will open.

A cool feature to mention is the ‘Use vertical resolution’ checkbox, which lets you switch to vertical resolution quickly without even thinking about the right numbers. This is also possible for a single Timeline instead of a project. If you tend to work with the settings a lot, click the three-dot menu in the top-left corner of projects to set your current settings as a default preset.

Now that you’ve set your project settings, you can create a Timeline by right-clicking in the media pool and selecting Create New Timeline, or pressing Ctrl / Cmd + n. If you want to have a different framerate or Resolution than what is set in the project settings before, untick the ” Use project settings checkbox to get into the small menu.

A small gearwheel icon in the Timeline’s thumbnail indicates it’s a custom timeline. It will automatically open and become visible through the playhead, turning red. If you’d like to give your Timelines different colours, you can do that by right-clicking them in the Media Pool and choosing clip colour.

Media Pool navigation on the Edit page

When working on a different page, your Media Pool is accessible via the Media Pool Panel, which you can activate in the top-left corner. It can be accessed on every page except the Deliver Page. Like in Premiere Pro, you have different view options. The three available are list, thumbnail, and metadata view. To switch between them, use the drop-down menu in the top bar.

List view gives you the most information about your clip. Using thumbnail view, it’s easy to identify the clip by a picture. A powerful feature in the thumbnail view is the live preview: when you hover over a thumbnail, you will see a preview of your clip in the source viewer. It can be deactivated in the three-dotted menu of the source viewer by deselecting live media preview.

To deactivate the sound when Live previewing, press Shift + s. If you want to adjust the thumbnail size, use the zoom function in the top bar. If you’d like a thumbnail as well as some metadata, the metadata view is for you.
When you’re looking for a particular clip, there’s a search bar in the top menu that allows you to find clips by any metadata available, including the one you set yourself when organising your clips. After you’ve found your clip, seeing the waveform can be quite helpful. By double-clicking, your clip will be loaded into the source viewer.

J, l, and K can be used like in Premiere Pro. By pressing the left or right arrow key, the clip will scrub single frames backwards or forwards.

Get through lots of footage. Fast.

By default, Resolves’ source viewer is set to Source Clip mode, in which it lets you preview and work with one clip at a time. I also like to work with Source Tape. This can be opened by clicking on the drop-down menu in the top left of the source viewer or pressing Shift + Q to switch between Source Clip and Tape.

The clips in the current bin are then available in the source viewer as if they were one clip. This makes it super-fast to go through a lot of footage and find the needed B-Roll, e.g., to add into a Source Timeline. Which leads me to one feature I find very useful: using a Timeline in the Source Viewer. If you’re the person who likes to preselect clips in a timeline, this is the tool for you! Simply drag and drop your preselection Timeline into your Source Viewer, or right-click on it in the Media Pool and select Open in Timeline with source viewer.

You can then use the Timeline like a clip and insert from it into your main edit without the need to switch between timelines all the time. Using a Timeline as Source Timeline will be indicated by the playhead turning blue.

Getting shots into the Timeline

To only insert the needed clip part into the Timeline, I set my in point with I and my out point with O. Alternatively, you can use the in and out mark buttons in the lower left corner of the source viewer. Accidentally set points and want to get rid of them again? Press alt / opt + I or O to delete the in or out point. For Resolve, it’s important to know that shortcuts do different things, depending on what is currently active. E.g., if you press X in the source viewer, it will delete both in and out points. If you press X while the Timeline is active, it’ll mark the clip at the playhead’s position.

A tip that helped me a lot: lots of buttons show a small overlay when you hover that gives you information about the functionality and shortcuts. There are seven insert options for adding footage to the Timeline.

Important to know: The behaviour when inserting a clip depends on the number of tracks and whether Auto Select is active. In addition to the most frequently used, the insert options are: fit to fill, place on top, append at end, and ripple overwrite. Their shortcuts are assigned to the F-buttons F9-F12 and Shift+F10-F12. They can also be found in the edit menu at the top of your screen. Beware Mac users: You might need to switch the fn keys from volume and brightness to the standard fn key on your Mac to use this.

You like to drag and drop? Check out the possibility to drag and drop from the source viewer into the Timeline Viewers Insert Option Menu. This will open when moving footage above the source viewer and gives you the option to drop onto an insert option.

Mismatched Resolution: Wait, is this already scaled?

When editing, handling different framerates and resolutions is an everyday task. Thankfully, when working with DaVinci Resolve, that’s no problem at all, since mixed frame rates are possible in a single Timeline.
When switching, I liked how Resolve sped up my workflow by handling scaling for mismatched resolutions. I think Premiere Pro handles this quite poorly, since I’ve always had to scale clips manually in the Timeline. Resolve offers four distinct options: Crop, Fill, Fit, and Stretch.

The option to scale the entire image to fit is the default setting and ensures the entire image is visible without blanking. When Crop is activated, Resolve will centre Crop without resizing. Larger clips will be cropped, smaller ones will have black borders. Using a full-frame scale with Crop will scale the clip to fill the frame, zooming in until the shortest dimension fits. The last option is to use a stretch frame on all corners. In this case, Resolve will distort the image to fit the frame.

By default, higher-resolution media will always be scaled down to the Timeline resolution. If you want to change that, go to Project Settings > Image Scaling > Input Scaling. If you want to change the scaling mode for individual clips, you can do so easily in the inspector’s retime and scaling window. Since Resolves Timeline resolution can always be changed, it’s good to know that correct scaling will be maintained. This gives you a lot of flexibility when working with different distribution aspect ratios.

Timeline navigation

When looking at the Timeline, Resolve should look familiar to you from Premiere Pro. The height of the audio and video Timeline can be adapted by clicking and dragging the Timeline divider. The height of the tracks can be adjusted by pressing Shift and scrolling, or by dragging the track divider to adjust only one track. To scroll through the Timeline, you can use strg / cmd + scrolling. Zooming in and out is possible with opt/alt + scrolling.

But there’s one advantage with zooming in Resolve: The Timeline toolbar offers three buttons for predefined zoom settings and one slider for individual adjustments. The left button will zoom to the full extent, the right to full detail zoom. The middle one will zoom to the current slider setting. You can therefore quickly jump to different settings without a lot of clicking or scrolling.

What I found quite annoying was the different navigation in the Timeline between Resolve and Premiere. When using Premiere, I liked to zoom around the mouse pointer. By default, resolve zooms around the playhead. If you don’t want that, simply change it in the menu view > zoom around mouse pointer. Honestly, when I finally realised I could change that, I had already gotten used to the Resolve default, and my Premiere way suddenly felt like chaos.

What still irritated me was only being able to see one open Timeline at a time. But this can be fixed by going into the Timeline View options. These open when you click the left icon on the Timeline toolbar and give you options to modify how your Timeline looks. The Display Stacked Timelines setting at the top lets you see all your open Timelines as tabs, like in Premiere Pro.

To open another Timeline, simply double-click on it in the Media Pool. Alternatively, you can open and switch between Timelines by using the drop-down menu at the top of the Timeline Viewer.

If you want to work from one Timeline into another, you can view multiple timelines simultaneously. To do so, click the small Symbol on the right, above the Timeline, while Display Stacked Timeline is activated. This will open a second Timeline Space below the first one. To open a Timeline in this space, double-click the wanted Timeline while the new space is selected. This is indicated by its Timeline Name being red.

Editing modes: Different workflows for different editors

As one major difference, editing tools in Resolve are consolidated into three editing modes: Selection Mode, Trim Edit Mode, and Blade Mode. The Key Advantage: Fewer tools mean fewer hotkeys to remember. Different editing operations are therefore intuitively performed by clicking on different parts of the clip. For example, if you’re in Trim Edit Mode, you can ripple by positioning the mouse pointer near an edit point, roll by positioning the mouse pointer over the edit point, slip with the mouse over the upper part of it, or slide by positioning the mouse on the lower part of the clip in the Timeline.

If you want to move a clip freely or delete something, Selection Mode is the one you want to go for, since this isn’t possible in any other Mode. You can still ripple and roll in Selection Mode, but Slip and Slide aren’t available. If you want to use the Blade, well, Blade Edit Mode would be the one. To switch between modes, you can either use the icons in the Timeline toolbar or their shortcuts. Like I said before, knowing which button does what and having a routine in that makes you fast, which is why the Edit Mode shortcuts irritated me the most when switching: instead of the shortcut v for Selection, it’s a, and instead of c it’s b for Blade.

It might take some time to get used to the new shortcuts, but all the functions you know from Premiere are there, too. E.g., cutting at the playhead can be done with Cmd/Ctrl+B. What I wish I had known earlier: alt/option + y lets you mark everything from the playhead forward, as you would in Premiere Pro. Playhead can be moved backwards with strg/cmd + y. If you want to turn snapping or linked Selection on or off, you can use the magnet and chain buttons in the Timeline toolbar. Alternatively, linked Selection can be temporarily disabled by pressing Alt, or by snapping with N while holding the mouse button. In addition, when dragging, holding Alt will copy the clip.

Need to fix something? Inspector.

With all shots in the Timeline, there might be a need for some refinement. This is what the inspector is for. It’s the place to optimise and adjust your clips and to work on effects you’ve added. To make adjustments in the inspector, check that the clip you want to work on is selected. This will be visible through a red outline.
What I really appreciate: Basic adjustments can be found here without having to add them from the effects panel.

First, there’s reframing. You can do this with the Transform tool in the inspector, which gives you easy access to zooming, position changing, rotation, and flipping. If the Studio version of Resolve is available to you, the AI Smart Reframe function helps you quickly reframe individual clips to other aspect ratios. For fast cropping, there’s a cropping function integrated directly into the inspector, too. Looking for a way to adjust across a defined range of clips? Adjustment clips can be added from the effects panel—these work just like in Premiere Pro.

If you need some speed adjustments, Speed Change will help you. With this, the Clips speed can be changed as a percentage or in fps. Important when switching from Premiere: By default, Resolve does not ripple the Timeline when adjusting a clip’s speed. This can be changed by checking the Ripple Timeline checkbox. Speed Change also gives you direction-change and freeze-frame options.

The stabilisation is one thing that really annoyed me when using Premiere Pro, since it was slow and didn’t work too well. Thinking about Resolves: it’s fast, accessible through the inspector, and yields a good outcome. You can choose between three modes: Perspective, Similarity, and Translation. When using Blackmagic Cameras, gyroscopic stabilisation is also available. Most of the time, the Perspective does the job. You can also adjust the cropping ratio, smoothness, and strength the way you like. Good to know: Unlike Premiere Pro, Resolve stabilisation can be applied to every clip, whether or not a speed change has been applied. Clips don’t need to be nested to apply stabilisation.

By now, you’ve got everything you need to edit the visual side of your video. For input on working with your audio and music, and on sharing and delivering your final clip, stay tuned.

The post Switching to Davinci Resolve: Your first cut first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Jana Johnston.

For those who don’t know the format: DNG is a RAW file container that sits between camera capture and post, showing up in ingest, transcode, grading, VFX pulls, and archive handoff, with a spec now mirrored by ISO 12234-4:2026.

The boring news that makes pipelines happier

DNG (Which stands for “Digital NeGative”, as someone surely learned and realised just now for the first time. If it’s you: Hi!!!!! ) now has an International Standard that specifies the file format. The published document is ISO 12234-4:2026 (Catchy….) , titled Digital imaging, Image storage, Part 4, Digital negative format. The standard is Edition 1, dated 2026-03, and about 100 riveting pages. The publication stage shows the International Standard published on 2026-03-24. But why shoud you care?

In plain pipeline terms, a file format spec moving into an ISO standard gives studios, vendors, and archives something concrete to point at when they need to define what a deliverable is. Not a vibe, not a promise, not a forum thread. A document.

A format grows up and gets paperwork

The DNG story did not start with a standards committee. The format was announced in September 2004. The goal at launch positioned DNG as an open and fully documented alternative to a growing set of proprietary RAW formats. The standardisation track has its own dates. The ISO 12234-4 project shows approval in February 2023, and a committee draft registered in June 2024. The publication stage lands in March 2026. Multiple draft stages existed, ballots ran, and a final publication date appears in the standard life cycle. Even if you never read page one, the existence of a defined life cycle is part of what procurement and preservation teams actually buy into.

We have to talk about CinemaDNG

Now, as great as all that is: CinemaDNG, the “Moving Pictures” Variant, a container with DNGs in it, is not on a roadmap to become an open Standard in the foreseeable future. Eventually someone will hopefully take pity, or there will be just one camera vendor left (Place your bets, ladies and gents….)

So, in that area, we still have ArriRAW, Braw, SonyRAW, CanonRAW, ProresRAW, PhantomRAW, RedRAW, RealRAW and are raw-ring (Bad pun, sorry) for a file standard that would be usable, free of problematic vendor choices (Not generally free, just not … problematic), and would just work. Excuse the outburst, back to the topic at hand. And yes, one of those formats is an invention, did you spot which one? It is April 1st after all.

What changes for post, VFX, and archive

Camera RAW formats tend to be popular because they keep options open for creative control, but they also create a dependency problem when specifications are not publicly available. If only one manufacturer’s toolchain can reliably read a file, long term access becomes a risk, and sharing across complex pipelines becomes harder.

DNG is now a publicly available archival format for raw files generated by various digital cameras. The format addresses the lack of an open standard for raw files created by individual camera models and aims to ensure photographers, filmmakers, and everybody doing pretty pictures can access their files.

An ISO document specifying the file froamt also gives asset managers a clearer way to define what they want to store. If you need to archive camera originals, mezzanine intermediates, and extracted plates, you often end up fighting two battles at once: what the pixels are, and what the metadata contract is. A formally specified container does not solve every metadata debate, but it does reduce the number of arguments that start with what even is this file.

Another practical shift is the language used in institutional workflows. Policies and contracts like standards. Long term storage systems like standards. Deliverable checklists like standards. Having ISO 12234-4:2026 on the shelf means teams can reference a published International Standard when they specify interoperable RAW formats for capture, ingest, transcode, management, and archiving.

TIFF roots, modern expectations

DNG did not appear in a vacuum. The format was built on the foundation of ISO 12234-2:2001, which specifies TIFF/EP-images. If your pipeline already has tooling that understands TIFF style containers (*Cough* print….) and robust tag handling, that heritage can be one reason DNG keeps showing up as a bridge format in real shops. The standardisation step does not magically turn every camera into a DNG camera, but it does make the file description less dependent on any single ecosystem narrative. Adobe, which invented the format, has useful and quite robust free converters for Mac & Windows: https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/digital-negative.html

A reminder before you rewrite your whole ingest plan

Standards are comforting, but pipelines are still pipelines. Test any new tool or workflow change before you put it into production, especially where RAW ingest, transcoding, and archive validation sit on the critical path. A shiny standard does not replace practical verification; it just makes the target less fuzzy.

And if your team has already been treating DNG as a useful interchange or archival option, the big difference now is that the file format sits within an ISO publication path with dates, editioning, and a stable identifier.

https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/en/#iso:std:iso:12234:-4:ed-1:v1:en

https://www.iso.org/standard/86123.html

https://www.iso.org/standard/29377.html

The post Adobe DNG becomes ISO standard (Not an April Fools joke) first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Even if you really want to, you have your workflow and rarely have the time to really get to know the new software. In the end, I was tired of getting slowed down by a constantly crashing software and not being able to render without artefacts. I thought the time spent on these issues with Premiere would have been better spent switching, especially since I was already colour grading in Davinci Resolve. To make the transition easier, here are some tips for switching from Premiere Pro to Davinci Resolve so you can get started as quickly and efficiently as possible:

Project Manager: Wait, where did I save my project?

One big difference between Davinci Resolve and Premiere Pro is how projects are managed. For this, the first thing you will see when opening the software is the Project Manager. This is the place to create and manage your projects. I’m honest: when switching, that was something that needed some time to adapt to, but it’s worth it.

While Premiere Pro projects are saved as files where you decide where, Davinci Resolve works with managed Libraries. These are structured containers that serve as a central repository for all project data. Libraries are managed via the Project Manager and can be hosted on your computer, on a networked server or in the Blackmagic Cloud. To switch between the three options, simply click on the one you choose in the top left corner of the Project Manager.

If you tend to make copies of your project on your computer to keep backups, this will change your workflow. But we’ll take a look at that later. For now, it’s important to know that projects saved in your active project library can easily be exported to your hard drive as a .drp file for a manual backup or transfer to another system. To export your project, right-click it and choose export.

Libraries come with some advantages. My favourite one: multiuser collaboration. I can’t describe how useful this is! Editors, colourists, VFX artists and sound engineers – everybody can work with the same project file on different workstations. Even at the same time, in the same timeline. Brilliant and timesaving.

Also speeding me up: powerbins. These are useful when working with media I use in multiple projects. They make media easily accessible across different projects, as long as it is in the same Project Library.  

Pages: Where do I start?

When switching from Premiere Pro, you’ll probably be used to using Dynamic Linking to get your edit into Audition, After Effects and Media Encoder to complete your postproduction process. In Resolve, this is what the Pages are for.

These follow the typical postproduction process from ingest to delivery, which provides a great advantage: you can have your whole postproduction in just one software. No exporting timelines for audio postproduction, visual effects or colour and no translation issues between software. There’s no need to manage multiple project files or export assets to get them from one project into another. Changes made in one page are instantly accessible in others, and you can quickly go back and forth as needed to change things.

I think to start, it’s important to say: Most things can be achieved in the Edit Page. Don’t get scared away by the masses of pages and functions! There are different ways to achieve your goal when editing, and you will get around very well, mostly by starting in Edit Page. Lots of functions from other pages are also available there. If you like, you can even turn off pages you don’t want to use in the preferences. To still give you a bit of orientation, here’s a quick overview of what the different pages are for:

The Media Page is for ingesting and organising. Right next to it we find the Cut page, which is an editing interface designed for speed. In the Edit Page, we have the traditional editing interface, which should be very familiar to you, coming from Premiere Pro. Quite different from After Effects is Fusion, the node-based workspace for compositing and VFX. The Colorpage – quite self-explanatory – is made for colour grading. Fairlight is the page where you can mix and master your audio after editing to then, finally, render your video out in the Deliver Page.

Interface basics: Where to find what you need

It will probably need some time for you to adapt to what’s different. One of the things that took me a while to get used to was the fixed panel places. While we’re used to being able to move everything around freely in Premiere Pro, Davinci Resolve allows only view windows to pop out and be moved freely throughout all pages. But once I adapted, it made total sense where everything is.

In the Edit Page, one big part of the window is the timeline in the lower part of the screen. Above that, we’ve got the source viewer and timeline viewer. Note: When your screen is too small or your screen resolution is too low, you might only see one viewer. Don’t worry, you can easily switch between those pressing Q.

In the Edit Page there are nine panels you can open and close by clicking their buttons located in the upper part of the screen. The ones on the upper left side will then open on the left and vice versa. The Media Pool on the upper left will give you fast access to your footage. It’s the same Media Pool as in the Media Page which we’ll look at later. The Effects panel, the index, and the mixer should be intuitive when switching from Premiere, though the feature I love most in the panels is the Inspector on the upper left side.

It could be compared to the effects controls in Premiere but has basic effects like crop already integrated, as well as more advanced effects like stabilisation, speed change, retime, and scaling.

Even though most panels are fixed, you can give yourself some more space by closing the panels you don’t need. Depending on whether you have opened multiple panels from both sides or not, they can be full-screen height or half-screen height. Accidentally messed up your UI? Don’t worry. You can quickly reset your UI layout in the menu Workspace > Reset UI Layout.

You’ll find dual-screen mode, full-screen Timeline, and, using Resolve Studio, permanent full-screen video out in the same menu.

Live Save and Project Backups

When working in Premiere Pro I often feared software crashes. I tried to save after every single thing I did because autosaving just didn’t cut it. Davinci Resolves Auto Save, which is called Live Save, is on a completely different level. I never fear that something is gone! I’ve got way fewer issues with the software crashing, but if it does, I know that what I did last will be there.

To restore the backups, right-click the project in the Project Manager. This won’t overwrite the current project version you’re working in. If you’re used to copying your Premiere Pro Sequence to revert to an earlier version of your edit, you may like to check out the Timeline backup function. It works just like Project Backups and can be activated and customised in the same spot. To restore a Timeline Backup, right-click on the timeline in either the media panel or Media Page. Just note: Timeline Backups will be stored locally, even when working on Network or Cloud Libraries, so they will only be accessible on the system where they were created.

Media Page: Import and Media Organisation

The one time I’d highly recommend switching pages is when importing media into your project. Even though it is possible to import media on all pages except Deliver, the Media Page offers many options for importing and managing your media.

The Media Page is split into Media Storage and Media Pool. The upper-left is Media Storage, which might be familiar to you if you used the Media Browser in Premiere Pro. It’s effectively a file browser for finding or exploring files on drives mounted on your computer. What I find very useful about this: you can quickly review or check footage in the viewer in the top-right corner of your screen, even without importing. A little extra: hovering over the footage lets you scrub through and preview without loading a clip into the viewer.

The lower part of the screen is your Media Pool – the project-specific repository for all the assets you’re importing or creating in Resolve, like footage, audio files, timelines, etc. On the left side, you’ll find the current projects bin list with the master bin. It’s the top level of your projects’ folder structure where all the other bins containing your project’s footage are listed. The right side shows the inside of the currently opened bin.

To get your footage into Resolve, simply drag and drop it from Media Storage, Finder, or Explorer into the Media Pool. If doing so on the Media Storage Bin list, the folder structure will be translated into the bin structure of your project. When adding to the right side, all the footage will be unpacked into the current bin

But there are other import options that let you stay in Resolve, leading to the same results: when you navigate to your folder in the Media Storage and right-click it, you’ll see the option to import your footage folder and all its subfolders into the current bin. This I find useful when working e.g., with Sony in camera folder structures, where you don’t want all the extra bins. Alternatively, you can choose “add folder and Sub folders into Media Pool (creating bins)” to get your complete folder structure as sub bins in the current bin. This is helpful if you already have your folders sorted out on your hard drive and want to copy the structure into Resolve.

Ways to create and work with proxies

Depending on the footage you’re working on, you might want to render some proxies. This is one particularly strong thing in Resolve and speeds me up quite a bit. You’ve got two options: if you’ve already set up your project and imported your footage, it’s super easy to create proxies by right-clicking on some highlighted footage and choosing proxie media > generate proxy media from the project settings.

In this case, it will automatically create proxies for the highlighted clips and save them in the location that is set in the project settings > master setting when scrolling down to working folders.

The Quality of the proxies can be defined in the same menu at optimised media and render cash. The proxy resolution is defined in relation to the original resolution. Possibilities are, for example: original, half of the original, a quarter of the original, etc. By default, it’s set to “choose automatically”, which will generate at the current set timeline resolution. When working with proxies, you can switch fast between disabling All proxies, preferring proxies and preferring camera originals, in the Timeline viewer.

You can also see whether proxies are attached by the white (for high-resolution) or purple (for proxies) icon on your clip, which will be visible in the thumbnail of your clip in the media pool.

If you really want to speed up your preparation process in advance, you should look into the Blackmagic Proxy Generator, an external tool which will automatically be installed with Davinci Resolve. It gives you the opportunity to render proxies in advance, without even having to get your project set up before. The proxies will then automatically be attached when importing the footage into a project.

This process will ensure you can go straight into editing when setting up your project. The strongest part of this tool is the watch folder function, which continues to scan your chosen folders for additional footage even after generating proxies. Very useful when you keep adding footage to folders you’re already working with.

Organising footage with scene metadata and smart bins

After you’ve added everything to your bins, it’s time to organise your footage. With Premiere Pro, I used to either restructure footage directly in bins, which made everything messy quite quickly, or sort my footage into sequences. In Resolve, I recommend using the scene metadata and smart bins. I know that Premiere Pro also lets you create smart bins using metadata, but it wasn’t intuitive enough for me to use back then. Resolve on the other side makes it super easy:

On the Media Page, click one clip or highlight multiple, then navigate to the top-right to close the audio panel. This will give your open Metadata panel more space. Choose “shot and scene” from the three-dotted menu. There, you’ve got lots of options to set metadata. One thing I like to use in this context is Clip colour, since it gives me an easy way to differentiate between different footage, for example, interviews with different people. Other than that, you can set metadata and let Davinci Resolve create smart bins based on it. For a start, I’d recommend you use Keywords. To do so, enter a Keyword you want to sort your footage by into the Keyword cell.

Then navigate to the bottom-left of your screen to find the Smart Bin List. By default, there should be a bin for Keywords. Davinci Resolve automatically generates one smart bin for every keyword you set before. By clicking on ‘Keywords’, a menu with all the smart bins will open.

Personally, I love this feature because it lets me keep my original folder structure while allowing me to sort my footage more intuitively. It also allows me to have the same clip in different bins, e.g., for location and person, which speeds up my process. With all this said, you should have everything you need to make your first steps in the software. Next up: how to get your Project Settings and Timeline right to start your first edit in Davini Resolve.

The post Getting your bearings: Switching from Premiere Pro to DaVinci Resolve first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Jana Johnston.

EditingTools.io has released QuickSweep, a plugin panel for Adobe Premiere Pro that focuses on cleaning up project-bin clutter by automatically categorising items into a chosen bin structure, a productivity plugin intended to eliminate project clutter and sort assets into the project bin structure.

EditingTools.io has released QuickSweep, a productivity plugin for Adobe Premiere Pro that automatically categorises loose project items into your chosen bin structure.

QuickSweep sorts using metadata, file extensions, and smart keyword scoring. Its detection targets Sequences and Nests, Video Footage, Graphics and Stills, SFX, and Music. You set where each category should land through Bin Mapping, and a Sync button refreshes the bin list. If you want it to keep cleaning while you work, Auto-Sweep runs in the background every four seconds. When something goes walkabout, a Moved Items log tracks what was moved and offers a Reveal action that loads the item in the Source Monitor.

Online / Offline

QuickSweep is designed to work offline, stores its configuration locally, and states it shares no data with any AI service. It also states it does not share project data with EditingTools.io, with one clearly described exception: using an Upload to EditingTools.io feature uploads metadata from the collected list to your personal EditingTools.io account. You can have that if you want, but Quicksweep works offline as well.

Compatibility is Premiere Pro CC 2022+ on Windows and macOS. The OS baseline named in the FAQ is Windows 10 and macOS 12 Montery. Installation uses a ZXP workflow, with ZXP Installer or Anastasiy Extension Manager suggested. The panel appears in Premiere Pro under Window > Extensions > QuickSweep.

Licensing is perpetual. EditingTools.io offers single-user, team, and enterprise licensing, with team licensing starting at three licences. Checkout is handled via Paddle as Merchant of Record, and single-user purchase is also listed via the Adobe Exchange Store. New tools and innovations should be tested before use in production, ideally on duplicate projects, because automation is only funny until it rearranges the wrong bin.

https://editingtools.io/plugins/quicksweep/

The post QuickSweep sorts your Premiere bins while you blink first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.