For those who don’t know the tool: DaVinci Resolve is an all-in-one post app with pages for Edit, Color, Fusion, and Fairlight. Version 21 adds a dedicated Photo page, so stills get the same node-based treatment as motion.

A platform update, not a party trick

DaVinci Resolve 21 lands as a broad update that touches media management, editing, colour, Fusion, Fairlight, and immersive delivery. The headline is not a single new transition or a one-button grade, but an expansion of what the application wants to be: a hub that can ingest, organise, finish all media – and now also treat still photography as a first-class citizen.

Resolve already built its reputation on page-based workflows that keep tools focused while staying inside one project. Version 21 leans further into that idea. The new pieces mostly aim to save time in real sessions: faster material finding, less metadata drudgery, tighter editorial control surfaces, clearer node management, and less timeline chaos as audio tracks multiply.

The Photo page puts stills on the same rails as grades

The most visible addition is the Photo page, integrated directly into the interface. It is not a tiny import dialogue or a bolt-on viewer. It is a dedicated workspace for photo management and image editing, tied into the same grading approach used for motion.

Photographs can be imported and managed as albums, with adjustments intended to preserve original source resolution and aspect ratio while reframing and cropping. A LightBox view shows an overview of an album with grades applied, and grades can update across the collection in real time as you work. Albums can also appear as timelines on other pages, keeping access consistent when you jump between tasks.

The Photo page also supports direct image capture through tethering for select cameras, with live capture saving directly into an album. Camera settings such as ISO, exposure, and white balance can be adjusted from within the application during capture. Collaboration extends into this photo workflow via Blackmagic Cloud, with album contents, metadata, tags, grades, and effects available for multiuser work.

AI search and analysis aim at real-world editorial pain.

Resolve 21 adds new AI-driven (Because of course, nothing these days without…) media tools built around analysis and retrieval. AI IntelliSearch is designed to search for people and content after media analysis, including individual faces, specific objects, and dialogue keywords. Results can appear as clips in the media pool, targeting faster clip organisation and faster assembly decisions when you already know what you need but cannot remember where it lives.

AI Speech Generator expands the AI toolset into synthetic voice creation. Written text can be transformed into spoken audio using prebuilt voice models or a custom voice created from a sample. A unique voice can be created from as little as a 10-second clip, and speed, pitch, and inflexion can be adjusted to shape multiple performances for voiceover or narration.

AI CineFocus targets focus and depth of field adjustments. A focal point can be defined by clicking, then aperture and focal range can be adjusted to change the depth of field. Controls include aperture shape and optical effects such as bokeh, and parameters can be keyframed for rack focus style moves.

Even more ML Tools

Additional AI tools in the release include Face Age Transformer, Face Reshaper, Blemish Removal, UltraSharpen, Motion Deblur, and Slate ID, which extracts slate clapperboard details into metadata fields. The slate tool is described as working even when clips are dark or out of focus, which is exactly where human assistants are usually dragged into data-entry duty.

All of this sounds like a lot, because it is. The practical question is whether it reduces the time spent hunting, tagging, and rebuilding context. That is the part worth testing on your own footage, in your own bin structure, with your own mix of accents, lighting, and, of course, the slate handwriting. New tools and innovations should always be tested before use in production.

Cut and Edit focus on friction, not reinvention.

The Cut and Edit pages get workflow refinements centred on keyframes, curves, and graphics handling. Keyframing updates include new ease animations with loop, pingpong, and relative modes, plus simultaneous adjustments to multiple clips. The curves editor adds a normalised zoom mode that scales curves to fill available vertical space, and four-point Bezier easing supports complex retiming.

Fusion effects can now be adjusted directly in the keyframes and curves editors on the Cut and Edit pages. That aims to keep motion graphics tweaks closer to editorial timing, instead of forcing constant page hopping for small parameter changes.

For titles and text, multi-language spell check is available, a font browser window allows previewing fonts, and text tools add support for colour fonts and emoji. Character-level styling allows different attributes within a single text box.

Graphics format support also expands with native handling for OGraf HTML graphics and Lottie animations. JSON and Lottie files can be dragged into the media pool and treated like rendered animation clips, with alpha channel recognition for compositing over video.

Some of these changes are quiet, almost boring. That is the point. They target the daily grind where small delays stack up into lost hours and extra coffee.

Colour tools add deliverables, logic, and node clarity

Resolve 21 adds tools meant for finishing multiple versions from one timeline. MultiMaster trim passes allow generating multiple trim deliverables from a single timeline. When enabled, additional layers appear in the node editor for trim operations, aiming at managing different output standards in one go.

The node editor also gains a layer list view that lists nodes in rows by count. The intent is a less-crowded interface and easier node-management actions, such as switching, locking, bypassing, and removing nodes. If you have ever stared at a dense node graph at 2 a m and wondered which branch you are about to break, that alone could be a quality of life win.

Group workflows also expand with group versions, allowing alternate looks to be compared within group-based grading. The scopes can be customised to display a chosen nit range for monitoring.

Magic Mask adds a render-in-place option to cache a tracked mask as a travelling matte node that links to the active node, enabling continued work with lighter processing.

Fusion gets Krokodove and a sharper macro workflow.w

Fusion in Resolve 21 adds the Krokodove toolset as an integrated collection of motion graphics and compositing tools, described as over 70 new graphics. The tools are intended to be editable starting points, so they can be customised and used as the basis for building your own looks.

If your team has been building internal macros for years, this is the kind of content library that can speed up onboarding and prototype work, as long as you still keep a consistent house style.

Macro building also gets an updated macro editor with interface improvements, a new inspector view, and support for publishing macros for immediate use.

Fusion connects more tightly to Fairlight through an Animator modifier that can drive animation based on audio analysis. Audio levels from timeline clips or media pool sources can drive parameters for animation.

Fusion also updates its USD toolset to support OpenUSD SDK 25.11 with the Hydra 2.0 API for the renderer, along with features such as 3D matte objects and textures, texture projector and catcher tools, and global in and out controls for the USD loader.

The result is a more connected motion graphics and VFX environment inside the same project that holds your edit and grade, without forcing a round trip through exports just to try a different lower third.

Fairlight organises the chaos with folder tracks.

Fairlight adds folder tracks for audio organisation. Tracks can be assigned to a folder and collapsed into a composite view, with mini rectangles representing folder contents, including number and duration of clips. Folders can be expanded back to individual tracks when detailed work is needed.

A mixer should not have to scroll for days just to find the one track somebody muted in the wrong place. This kind of structure also plays nicely with the reality of modern sessions where deliverables, versions, and language tracks multiply faster than anyone wants to admit. Anybody wants in on the bet when Connected Conform gets re-invented?

Immersive delivery keeps getting attention.

Resolve 21 continues immersive workflow development with VR180 and VR36, delivering presets for Meta Quest and YouTube. Immersive orientation can be handled using spherical Panomap rotation with pitch, tilt, pan, yaw, and roll adjustments. ILPD retargeting data can be applied in Fusion for stereoscopic handling and compositing.

Apple Immersive workflows add support for foveated rendering for improved playback and viewer experience on Apple Vision Pro. If your shop lives entirely in flat frames, you can ignore this. If you deliver immersive content, having presets and orientation tools inside the same project beats stitching together a toolchain of specialised “utilities”.

A few more practical add-ons

Resolve 21 adds a Picture-in-Picture effect that lets you quickly resize and position a clip over another clip as a floating frame, with adjustable parameters such as size, placement, frame rounding, and drop shadow. This fits nicely with “Fast turnaround” YouTube / podcast productions, or if you want to record a tutorial – maybe about this tool in Resolve, for maximum recursion?

IntelliScript expands screenplay import support for Final Draft and plain text formats, creating a cut by comparing script text to transcribed audio, then allowing refinements with standard editing tools.

Metadata handling improves with star ratings and tagging (useful for photos), plus new media pool columns to expose those fields for filtering takes.

Availability and pricing

DaVinci Resolve 21 is available as a public beta now. The software is offered as a free download, and DaVinci Resolve Studio is listed at $295.

Resolve 21 is big enough that you should treat it like any major platform. Shift: install it alongside your stable version, throw real projects at it, and see where it helps and where it still trips over the weird corners of your projects. It is easy to get distracted by confusing AI features and shiny new pages, but the real win is whether the day-to-day work gets smoother.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve

The post Blackmagic Design turns DaVinci Resolve 21 into a photo app first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Before we start: We typed this during the live stream, so watch out for deeper and more precise News and Articles about Resolve 21 and Fusion 21. (And the removing of some typos the day after)

The 100G shift: fewer cables, still redundant

Blackmagic Design is using NAB 2026 as a coordinated move to a new SMPTE 2110 ecosystem built around 100G networking. The goal is to reduce cabling complexity while keeping redundancy, monitoring, and routing features in a footprint that fits broadcast racks and mobile units.

The centre of gravity is a new class of native 2110 switchers, designed around 100G links rather than baseband trunks. The ATEM 4 M/E Constellation IP moves the Constellation line into a 100G design with 32 inputs and 28 outputs. It includes standards conversion on every input, four multiview outputs, 16 ATEM Advanced Keyers, four DVEs, and two SuperSource processors. A larger three-rack-unit model targets bigger sports and broadcast work with 64 inputs and 52 outputs.

Infrastructure gets a matching 100G backbone

A pile of new rack hardware is positioned as glue between the new switchers and the wider world. Blackmagic SDI Expander 8x12G converts a 100G connection into eight 12G-SDI inputs and eight 12G-SDI outputs, aimed at bridging IP cores to SDI edges. Blackmagic Studio Bridge 10G PWR aggregates eight separate 10G Ethernet connections into a 100G link and adds 90 watts of PoE per port, intended to power multiple Studio Camera Pro 6K systems from a single bridge. The Ethernet layer here leans on IEEE 802.3 Ethernet concepts, and the power spec ties into Power over Ethernet as a technology class.

For recording and replay, HyperDeck ISO Recorder 100G is recording eight channels over a 100G workflow to network storage. A key workflow promise is that Resolve can access files while they are still recording, which pitches a tighter handoff between acquisition and post.

Routing and timing details are also called out in the wider 2110 fabric. Blackmagic Ethernet Switch 820 expands the 2110 infrastructure with eight 100G ports, PTP clock distribution, NMOS control, and redundant power. The timing note points to PTP as a production-critical building block, while the control layer references NMOS for device discovery and orchestration in IP facilities.

Storage and removable media aim at replay and shared post

The replay path is paired with new storage and media hardware intended to sit in the middle of shared workflows.

Blackmagic Cloud Store Ultra is a faster dual-100G storage design intended to sit at the center of Resolve replay and shared post workflows. Blackmagic Media Dock Ultra uses Blackmagic Media Modules in a rackmount form for removable high speed storage, pitching a more controlled way to move media in and out of a facility or truck without improvising around generic drives.

There is also a new rack utility converter designed to keep a 2110 system calm when the outside world does not behave. Blackmagic Up/Down Cross 100G is an eight channel standards converter intended to shield a 2110 system from mismatched incoming formats. In practical terms, it is presented as a buffer between the promise of clean IP routing and the messy reality of mixed feeds. Monitoring and local control also get attention in rack-first environments. ATEM Monitoring Rack Panel 20 and 40 combine monitoring outputs and control panel functionality so a rack can retain local ATEM operation even in newer ventilated rack designs.

Cinema cameras keep getting pulled into live

A camera software update adds an ST2110 Live mode to URSA Cine 12K, pitching it as a live production camera while leaning on digital film image quality language, plus built in color correction and dedicated LUT handling for 2110 output. The clear throughline is that the cinema camera becomes another node in the same IP plant, not a separate island that demands special cabling and conversions.

New accessories are also listed for broadcast lens and operator needs. URSA Cine Studio Viewfinder is introduced, along with a Sony B4 mount and a lens control cable intended for broadcast lenses and production demands.

High frame rate 2110 as a future workflow teaser

One future track focuses on high frame rate production over 2110. The pitch is that 100G Ethernet is not just about more channels, but also higher frame rates, with workflows aimed at 240 fps or even 480 fps capture.

To support that direction, a URSA Cine 12K LF 100G and a Blackmagic Studio Bridge 100G are previewed. The same infrastructure is intended to feed Resolve replay with high frame rate media, while using Up/Down Cross 100G to derive standard frame rate feeds for the rest of the system. This is the point where the platform story becomes very literal: acquisition, conversion, replay, and shared storage all orbit the same 100G core.

Immersive production plans: live 3D and more switching

A second future track targets immersive production with a live chain built around URSA Cine Immersive 100G. The outlined chain includes a URSA Cine Live Encoder module, plus HyperDeck and DeckLink updates for immersive handling. A future ATEM Solaris switcher family is also in the works for full 3D and immersive switching.

The scope here matters because it frames immersive as a live pipeline problem, not just a post problem. It also implies that switching, capture, encode, and I/O need to be designed together if the goal is real-time immersive production.

Fairlight Live: software mixing with broadcast expectations

Audio is treated as a major pillar of the NAB 2026 story, centered on Fairlight Live. It is a software based live audio mixer designed for broadcast, ATEM integration, SMPTE 2110 workflows, and surround, spatial, and immersive audio.

Channel scale is positioned as elastic, with support for hundreds or thousands of channels depending on the host computer. It is said to work with standard computer audio and USB devices, and includes broadcast functions such as cue playback, talkback, snapshots, routing tools, and third party plug-in support.

To pair with the software, Fairlight Live Audio Panel hardware is launching in 10, 20, and 40 fader versions. The intent reads as a familiar split: compute and software can scale quickly, while tactile control stays purpose-built and consistent.

DaVinci Resolve 21: Photo page, AI tools, broader umbrella

DaVinci Resolve 21 is the main software release, a large update that spans a new Photo page, multiple AI tools, improvements across Edit, Cut, Color, Fusion, and Fairlight, immersive and VR work, and more than one hundred new features overall. (More on that tomorrow, and a test is soon to follow!)

The Photo page brings the application’s film color grading toolset into photography. On the AI side, IntelliSearch is a object, face, and content based media search. Both in bins, certain types of media, trqanscripts, and media-libary-wide. We all have that one folder ….

AI Clip Analysis and AI Slate ID are included, with AI Slate ID reading slate metadata, and writing those into the file metadata – so, the first ingest pass is quickly filled with all availble stuff from set, but do keep an assitant with a non-medical handwriting, or use a digital slate. An AI Speech Generator is also on board, generating spoken audio from written text, whoich is claimed to learn a new voice with just a few seconds or minutes of training. We’ll try that soon, with our best southern bavarian accent.

Edit and Cut updates include improved keyframing, better curves, and a new font browser. Color gains multi-master trim pass grading, node editor improvements, larger node stack options, group grade versions, and updated immersive workflows.

One notable packaging detail is the integration of the Krokodove effects package into Fusion and Resolve, adding more than 70 built-in Fusion effects. That is a pragmatic kind of news, because built-in effects tend to survive long projects better than scattered third-party installs.

Since they are Fusion-based, you can use them as is, or confiugure and personalise them to your hearts desire. Or use them as a jumping off point to create your own.

Fusion 21: deep tech work, not just polish

Fusion 21 is one of the biggest technical updates in the package, and the list is dense in the best and worst way. It adds a Fairlight Animator modifier, plus a new macro editor. Multi Inspector controls allow editing shared properties across multiple nodes. Lens distortion analysis gets improvements.

The native 3D renderer gains Cryptomatte output, tying into the broader Cryptomatte standard for ID mattes. There are relief map tools, full layer support in the Deep toolset, and a Deep Colour Corrector.

On the scene description side, Fusion 21 includes OpenUSD SDK 25.11 with Hydra 2.0 for Storm. There are also new projector and capture nodes for USD, plus stereoscopic and immersive workflow updates. Speed Warp is now listed as available inside Fusion, and there are UI changes, variable mapping, and support for OGraph HTML graphics and Lottie animations. The overall theme is that Fusion is being treated as a serious systems piece inside Resolve, not a bolt-on compositor with a few convenience features.

Pricing and the usual reality check

The larger point across this whole slate is coherence. The product updates line up as a platform push that tries to make live IP infrastructure, replay, storage, cameras, audio, and post feel like one continuous system. That does not remove risk. New tools and new workflows should be tested in your own pipeline before they touch a live show, a tight delivery, or anything with real money attached.

The post Resolve 21, Fusion, Fairlight Live, and many, many boxes! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

A proper hardware device by Blackmagic Design (BM for short) and a calibrated screen has been the iron law for any professional user of DaVinci Resolve (DR for short). But for all those working under MacOS, this may have been valid for the longest time. We are looking at recent changes in DR for those without one. Spoiler: calibration still matters!

How to check

To see what’s going on when playing your movie on other devices and players you can compare your own footage, for sure. At least, if you were the colorist, you should know how it should look like. But if you are unsure (and our memory for colors can be tricked easily), there is the classic SMPTE chart in DR, which has the so-called PLUGE pulse (short for picture line-up generation equipment) in the lower right. In the wider black bar there are two narrow zones with a value just above black, the left one being the darker one (check your waveform).

If your blacks are not crushed by a false gamma interpretation, you should be able to see the right bar just faintly inside the black stripe. The middle one may only become visible if the shadows are lifted too much. Of course, it all depends on your screen too. If it’s not capable of showing black or at least near black, the rest of that whole area will not be pitch black, making it harder to judge the subtle differences. Actually, there is a third bar to the left of the two, but that is reaching down into the sub-black area and only visible if you have exported the file with “Retain sub-black and super-white data” activated. Normally it is just cut off.

Calibration options

DisplayCal is plugging into DR and sending its test patches through the grading software over any compatible I/O device to the screen you need to calibrate. The resulting LUT can be copied into DR and used as a monitoring LUT to correct deviations of the connected screen. This approach works absolutely correctly with the right settings in DisplayCal, being able to avoid any interference of the operating system, be it MacOS, Windows or Linux. Final precision is limited only by shortcomings of your monitor, like weak shadow areas, as visible below. BTW, those small spikes and minor shifts in the waveform are caused by compression in our recorder.

In our series of articles for those not able to spend a fortune on high-end solutions, we have shown how to get a proper LUT with the help of free software and second-hand hardware for Apple silicon. But now we have two solutions pretty much on par regarding calibration in the operating system by an ICC profile. So, we wanted to know if one can live without such an I/O device and that perfect calibration over the whole chain. Actually, BM has recently changed how preview windows and full screen display color and contrast. So, ICC profiles may not be insufficient any more for DR on a Mac with a screen adhering to standard!

Direct monitoring

BM has supported the use of Mac display profiles in DR’s viewers under MacOS for quite some time, even in 10-bit. But due to peculiarities carried over from older systems, they needed to use a non-standard version of Rec. 709, called 709-A. That was nothing but a crutch, and it was not only Apple’s fault that contrast and brightness were inconsistent between many players and other devices. If you are seriously bored, you can read this thread, with over 20 pages, the longest one ever in the DR user forum. You can follow some true experts and many wannabes there, discussing a ‘final’ solution. So, what’s our take on it?

The Never Ending Story: Are Apple XDR devices suitable for reference use in colour grading?

The main problem is lack of timely standardization when everything went from tubes to digital cameras and screens. The Rec. 709 standard for HDTV was defined based on analog technology, which behaved differently from modern cameras and screens. The newer addition to that standard is called BT. 1886, but it was only published by the ITU in 2011.

At that time there were already too many digital technologies in use, and most manufacturers didn’t really care much about adherence to a standard coming so late. BT.1886 defines a gamma (a contrast curve) of 2.4, which is fine for viewing TV in a rather dimly lit living room. Adjusting that curve is not really adhering to the standard, but on this model of a TV, for example, a value of +2 will get it to 2.2.

This slightly older Samsung TV, as a typical example, is offering modes like Movie, Natural, Standard, and Dynamic. Nothing says “Rec. 709” or “BT. 1886” right away, but „Natural“ is actually adhering to BT.1886, even fixed to it. „Standard“ is BT. 1886 too by default, but allows you to override that gamma in the expert settings – go figure. “Movie” is also adhering to BT.1886, but with a very warm tint – which again can be overridden, just like gamma. Recent ones have the “Filmmaker” setting, which is supposed not to change anything, and “Dynamic” is for bright rooms. Have fun with all the creative names and options of other manufacturers!

A lighter and less contrasty gamma of 2.2 might be better in a brighter environment. Mobile devices in particular are watched wherever you go. Even if some can reach very high brightness values these days, details in darker areas of the image can get lost if the content was graded as 2.4. Encoding clips for social media instead of movies for cinema buffs may profit from a gamma of 2.2, which is correctly flagged as 1-4-1 by DR. It even adheres to a standard, called BT.470 System M, as shown by MediaInfo (free). But this was a standard for analog television in some parts of the world only, and is now considered historical.

But do TVs and other devices really check such flags, which contain the information about encoding in your digital video files? They should tell the playback device which colour primaries, which colour matrix, and which gamma (called transfer characteristics here) were used. If you check with the info function for a video file on a Mac, the ones for Rec. 709 BT. 1886 are code points 1-1-1 or flags (I’ll use flag from here). They will be listed by cross-platform software such as MediaInfo as Rec. 709 for all three parameters.

In a perfect world, all playback devices and software players should respect such flags and show your video accordingly. Well, at least most of them assume your sources are 1-1-1, but often don’t care if it’s flagged as anything else, like 1-4-1 or 1-2-1. Some even force 1-1-1 on your clips, whatever they are. As we all know, YouTube is recompressing your sources, which is acceptable if the quality is good enough. But what’s absolutely unacceptable: whatever your original flagging was, YouTube will set it to 1-1-1 without even asking you! Just try to send one of your clips to YT and read it back. The free video patcher AMCDX by Alex Mogurenko will help you to correct wrong flags, but you need to remember the original encoding.

What to do?

In consequence, your results, which you encoded as gamma 2.2 for viewing in brighter environments, will actually be displayed darker and loose detail in the shadows. And if you encode from DR as Rec.709 gamma 2.4, which is offered as another option, it may too bright and lack contrast and saturation on players or a browser not respecting the flags. So, always encode as Rec. 709 (Scene) and hope for the best. It should look right on a TV with the correct settings. These can normally be found on most modern TVs or monitors if you dig deep enough into the menus, either as Rec. 709 or BT. 1886. Out of the box, many TVs are set to a very contrasty and saturated look, shouting out “Buy Me!” to the visitors of a mall for electronics.

The very popular VLC player is another example of ignoring flags, while we can recommend mpv player or its descendants for observance of flags. Of course, this says nothing yet about the quality of the screen attached to it. If that one is not calibrated, or at least set correctly in its menus, the image may still be far off. And then, there are all those image ‘enhancements’ imposed by digital TVs for viewing conditions, like bright environments or late hours. Or think of a projector meant to be visible in a not so dimly lit boardroom and optimized for (visual!) clarity of business charts.

Recommendations

Recent MacBooks and iPad Pro models have excellent blacks and offer reference modes for several standards, including HDTV (BT.709-BT. 1886). These are factory-calibrated and deactivate any image adjustments, assuming an environment properly lit for grading. Now, there is some sample variation and according to our own measurements, the nit value for white can be a tad low, like around 90 instead of 100 (some experts even suggest 120). Nevertheless, such screens come pretty close to a properly calibrated screen in the lower price range and offer much better blacks than conventional IPS panels.

If you are working for TV, we would still advise a professional, calibrated monitor via an I/O device. But, at least with the settings explained above, your viewers in DR will not look completely off when a client is looking over your shoulder. For all those working for social media, where your audience will have devices that you can’t control anyway, we suggest sticking to the only widespread norm: Rec. 709 with a gamma of 2.4. If you are concerned about visibility in bright environments, change the lighting in your room and check with an average smartphone, but avoid the setting for gamma 2.2 when rendering.

If you work for clients who want your results for social media, but are picky about how their movies look, you may need to supply them with an iPad Pro for presentations. Set it to a reference mode, block that, and try to explain to them why their average boardroom projector may look different. You may even want to take a photograph of TVs in an electronics market showing the same content next to each other.

Let’s do it on a Mac

So you’ve got a MacBook Pro (MBP for short) with Apple silicon and you’ve got a calibration probe, be it by Datacolor or Calibrite. But working just for the internet, you didn’t invest in an I/O device. We don’t care which generation of that laptop, as long as it has the nice XDR screen and reference modes. But who likes to work with DaVinci Resolve on such a small screen (even the menu bar is too short for all the little extras)? Let’s say you have a larger screen with decent color quality attached when you start grading at your home base. After all, not only Apple says that you should be grading to standards in a controlled environment – something hard to find in a hotel room or on the road. Now calibrate that external screen with your probe, and you’ll be generating just an ICC profile for the Mac in this case. More than one profile can be prepared for the correction of different monitors, which will be managed by the system.

Brightness according to BT. 1886 would be 100 nit, but 120 fits modern screens better. The steps needed for calibration are fully self-explanatory with the Spyder Pro software, and the result on a decent screen is very close to what we see on the MBP when set to reference mode. OK, DisplayCal may be a tad more precise. But it’s more complicated and taking many more measurements, resulting in excessively long lunch breaks.

You need to set the system preferences of DR to use the Mac profiles, as already shown above, and now you have to stick to Rec. 709 (Scene) on the Deliver page to get your output and its flags right. Do not use Rec. 709 Gamma 2.4, even if theoretically it should be the same!

Your timeline can be whatever you prefer: Rec. 709, ACES, or DaVinci Wide Gamut Intermediate (DWG). Of course, with manual settings your first node should get a CST (Color Space Transform) to adapt the incoming camera sources to DWG. Resolve’s automatic setting, called DaVinci YRGB Color Managed (aka RCM) set to SDR would also deliver the flags as 1-1-1, by the way. But you may need to check if the incoming footage’s color and gamma is identified correctly or needs to be set manually. That’s often the case if some difficult source has been transcoded into an intermediate codec, like ProRes, DNxHR, or Cineform.

Conclusion

In the end, you need to understand that rendering into a specific colour space and gamma is actually changing the visual content of your results. 
Tags are just metadata, which should trigger the right interpretation in players. That’s the point where chaos breaks loose, because manufacturers often don’t care for the tags and display your video based on assumptions. The only reliable approach is encoding to Rec. 709 with a gamma of 2.4 and having the tags set to 1-1-1, which is automatically done if you render into Rec.709 (scene).

The post LUTs, Tags, or ICC: Getting Colours Right in Resolve on a Mac first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Uli Plank.

For those who don’t know the tool: Beeble runs AI relighting and pass generation in the browser via the Cloud app and locally via Beeble Studio, using SwitchLight for video-to-PBR work and SwitchX for background swaps, with exports that slot into comps in Nuke and motion work in After Effects.

Background Remover does not add a brand new trick. It pulls the same AI masking model used in VFX Pass Generator into a standalone, faster workflow meant for the quick matte job, with the provided materials calling it more credit-efficient than a full pass as a marketing claim. Exports lean hard into practical comp handoffs, including RGBA video with alpha, RGBA PNG sequences, and alpha-only sequences, which fits motion graphics work where you want clean holdouts so titles and design layers can live behind moving subjects.

For more background, see Digital Production coverage of SwitchX background swaps, Studio local 4K relighting, and SwitchLight 3.0.

The real news is the shortcut

Background Remover lives inside the Cloud app as a standalone alpha extraction workflow. The core promise is not mystery science. It is a packaging change that targets one task, foreground mattes, with fewer steps and fewer credit demands than running a broader multi-pass job.

That matters because a lot of shots do not need a full buffet of passes. Plenty of days you just want a clean subject cutout so you can comp a replacement plate, push a quick relight downstream, or build motion graphics behind a moving performer. Background Remover aims at that moment when you would normally sigh, open your roto tool of choice, and start paying for coffee by the hour.

It also draws a bright line between where it runs and where it does not. Background Remover is available exclusively in the Cloud app and it is not available in the desktop product yet.

Inputs that match real-world chaos

The tool accepts three kinds of input: a single image, a video, or an image sequence. Single images support common formats, including PNG and JPEG. Image sequences support up to 2,000 frames. For video, the supported container and codec combinations include MP4 using H.264 and MOV using ProRes 422, ProRes 4444, or H.265. The maximum file size is 2 GB. The tool supports up to 2K resolution at 2048 pixels, and it will downscale larger video. It supports clips up to 60 seconds and up to 30 fps, with higher frame rates reduced.

Color handling has a practical bias. Rec. 709 for video and sRGB for images are called out as the best quality settings, while other color spaces such as Log can degrade quality. That is less of a moral stance and more of a reminder that alpha extraction likes predictable input, not surprise curves.

Preview first, then commit, unless you like living dangerously

Background Remover runs a two-phase workflow for video. First comes a preview stage that extracts a preview frame and generates rough alpha previews. This stage exists for sanity checking. The preview alpha is explicitly rough, not pixel-perfect, and fine details like hair edges and semi-transparent areas are refined during full extraction.

If you want to steer the result, there is an interactive refinement step. The workflow uses an Edit Alpha action inside the preview dialog. That opens a rotoscoping UI designed around quick subject selection. The demo workflow shows clearing the existing mask and selecting only the subjects you want to keep by clicking them, then applying the alpha.

There is also a Skip Review mode. It bypasses preview and refinement and runs full extraction immediately. In that mode, the first frame becomes the reference and the pipeline runs without manual review. It is intended for simpler shots with clear subjects and consistent backgrounds. None of this replaces judgment. It simply gives you the option to front-load a small amount of control before you burn the full render.

Exports that behave in comps

Background Remover produces two output types: RGBA results with transparency applied, and grayscale alpha mattes. For RGBA, it can output a MOV file with an embedded alpha channel, plus RGBA PNG output as a sequence or a single image. The MOV output is 10-bit RGBA in sRGB. The PNG RGBA output is 8-bit in sRGB.

For alpha-only delivery, it can output an MP4 grayscale matte as well as grayscale PNG output as a sequence or a single image. Grayscale alpha outputs are 8-bit and represent the matte range from 0.0 to 1.0.

The point here is pipeline friction. An embedded-alpha MOV can drop straight into After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, or Final Cut Pro without juggling a separate matte file. When you do want a separate matte, the alpha-only options cover both video-centric and frame-centric workflows.

If you build motion graphics, this is the part that keeps paying rent. A clean matte lets typography, UI, and graphic elements sit behind a moving subject while staying readable. That trick stays stubbornly useful, even when the rest of the shot changes.

Credits, pricing, and the part everyone asks first

Pricing is expressed in credits and it is published on the official pricing page for the Cloud plans. Background Remover is listed at 1 credit per second of video, and 1 credit per image. VFX Pass Generator is listed at 3 credits per second of video, and 3 credits per image. That is the math behind the one-third claim.

Plan details and credit bundles live on the Cloud pricing page, including per-plan limits. Note that Background remover is not included in the free tier.

Limits that matter when you are on a deadline

Image and image-sequence uploads have a maximum of 100 MB per file. Resolution supports up to 2K at 2048 pixels, and larger files are rejected. Video uploads support up to 2K, with larger video downscaled. Video duration supports up to 60 seconds and frame rates up to 30 fps, with higher rates reduced.

Bulk handling exists too. The tool supports bulk downloading multiple completed results at once. For anybody juggling variants, alt takes, or multiple elements, that avoids the classic cloud workflow of clicking download until your wrist files a complaint.

Where it fits in the larger toolset

Background Remover sits as a focused subset next to the broader pass workflows. If you only need a matte, it keeps you out of the heavier multi-pass path. If you need more, the pass generator remains the place for depth, normals, and other map outputs that support relighting and downstream work in 2.5D and 3D contexts.

https://app.beeble.ai/

The post Beeble Background Remover hits Cloud app 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.