Hello, welcome to this video! Let's get a general and complete overview on
the newest DaVinci Resolve 16 from Blackmagic Design!
Make sure to check our YouTube channel and our official website for more
and free tips, suggestions, extras and giveaways!
DaVinci Resolve is a video-editing product with the complete set of the
features you need to realize your own videos, applying basic modifications
and pieces of text, visual and audio corrections and also special effects
and transitions. In this video we will see how to start with the free Lite
version, but the basics do not change in case you use the professional
Studio version.
Resolve starts from its Project Manager page with all your existing
projects made. By default these are collected inside a single database
called Local Database. You can create your own one by going to
New Database at the bottom, selecting Connect to link an existing database
or Create to create a new one, defining name and Location.
To discover how to use Resolve, let's start with a new blank project by
either going to Untitled Project or to the New Project button at the
bottom. At this point, the main interface shows up, divided in seven
workspaces listed at the bottom.
Inside Media you browse, import and manage your own media files to work
with; Cut is a new workspace on Resolve 16 where you can trim media very
precisely and Edit is where you create your own video by applying basic
editing and corrections. Fusion is an advanced workspace used to add
visual effects and chains; whereas Color and Fairlight are dedicated to
color and audio adjustments respectively. Deliver is the final workspace
where you set and render your project into your final video. In this
beginner tutorial we will see the basic Media, Edit and Deliver workspaces.
First thing to do on a new project is to import all your source files,
such as videos, pictures and audio. You can use the Media workspace to
browse for your own files from your computer folders listed within the
Media Storage panel and then import by dragging and dropping these into
the Master panel at the bottom.
These files will also be listed under the Media Pool panel, inside
Edit workspace. You can get a quick preview on these by either hovering
over their thumbnail or double-clicking on these and checking the Preview.
To start editing these imported files, drag and drop these into the
project Timeline. These are shown as small blocks called clips with their
file name and extended as much as they last in time. Video clips and
pictures in blue color are contained inside Video Tracks, with a V letter
plus a number on the left. Whereas music and audio files are green and
kept separated from visual content inside Audio Tracks at the bottom.
Remember to save the project often while working on it, especially when
seeing a red Edited label on top. Just use CMD+S (or CTRL+S on Windows),
define the project name the first time you save. When you return to the
Project Manager page with the Home button at the bottom, you can see your
new saved project inside the current database.
To check the Timeline content you can zoom in and out around the red
marker by using your mouse wheel while holding down the ALT key. Whereas
hold down the Shift key to move through time.
You can also use the Timeline View Options to get a quick preview on the
clip content by showing and extending video frames and audio waveforms on
these.
Whereas to playback the whole Timeline content in real time you have to
use the main Preview and its player above. This shows the project where
the red marker is placed in time, so you can click and drag it to move it
and check different sections of the project.
Now let's see how to edit clips with the Selection Mode enabled.
To move any clip in time just click and drag it within the same Track
or in another one. If the Track does not exist, it is created automatically.
Make sure not to overlap clips in time within the same Track or one of
these gets cut.
The Video Tracks order also fixes the order of visibility between the
visual clips that overlap in time on different Tracks. All clips placed on
the higher Video Tracks are shown in front of the others placed on
lower Tracks.
When moving videos containing audio, both frames and audio move together,
showing a chain icon on these. You can unlink and move these independently
by right-clicking and disabling Link Clips.
To stretch and trim clips in time just click and drag their edges.
Depending on the shape of your cursor you can extend the clip by either
overlapping other clips or stopping when reaching these.
You can also switch to the Cut workspace to trim clips frame by frame,
editing the clip singularly or moving all the other clips that follow the
current one.
When shortening videos and audio clips in this way part of their content
is cut. You can change their speed or playback rate to shorten and
stretch these clips in time without changing their content.
When you right-click on a clip and go to Change Clips Speed... you can
change its playback rate in percentage: above 100% to speed up the clip
and make it shorter or below 100% to make it slower and longer in time.
You can also use Reverse speed to playback the clip in reverse.
To make copies of a clip, just move it while holding down the ALT key.
You can delete any clip by selecting it and using the Backspace key. To
undo any bad action, just use CMD+Z (or CTRL+Z on Windows). Whereas to
split clips in independent pieces you can enable the Blade Edit Mode and
click on the clip itself.
You can use the Track options on the left to manage their content as you
need. Use the Lock button to block any modification on a specific Track.
On Video Tracks use the frame button to hide or show the visual content
and, on Audio Tracks, use the Mute button to disable the audio content.
The Solo button mutes all the other Audio Tracks except the current one.
To remove any Track and all of its content inside, right-click on it and
go to Delete Track.
Let's see how to edit the basic properties of the Timeline clips.
The main Preview is also used to make quick modifications on visual clips.
Select the visual clip interested and choose any of the edit options in
the bottom left corner.
With Transform you can click and drag the clip to move it; use its white
nodes to scale it and the central node to rotate it. If you do not see any
of these nodes, make sure to enable the edit mode first. Whereas if you do
not see any modifications applied, make sure the current clip is not
getting overlapped by other clips.
Use Crop to crop the clip.
Use Dynamic Zoom to apply animated pan and zoom effect on the clip,
starting from the position and the zoom level on the red (Start)
rectangle to the green (End) rectangle.
Enable Annotations to draw vectors freehand and straight arrows on the
clip directly on the Preview.
To adjust properties more precisely you have to use the Inspector panel
on the right. Depending on the kind of clip selected from the Timeline,
this lists all visual and audio properties you can edit by either sliding
on the bars or typing the correct values directly. If you do not see these
options, just double-click on the property name.
In case of video clip with audio, you will get both the Video and the
Audio sections above.
When selecting visual clips you can use Opacity to adjust its transparency
and Composite Mode to adjust transparency according to the clip colors.
Use Transform to adjust the basic clip appearance, such as its zoom level
with Zoom, its placement with Position and its inclination with Rotation
Angle, around the Anchor Point as centre. Use Pitch and Yaw to 3D rotate
and Flip to flip the clip horizontally or vertically.
With Cropping you can crop the clip on each side, adding feather with
Softness.
When selecting audio clips, you can use Clip Volume to adjust its volume
and Clip Pan to balance the left and the right channel volume. Use Clip
Pitch to correct the audio tone and Clip Equalizer to apply audio filters.
You can turn on and off effects of your corrections by clicking on the
orange button next to each property name.
When applying corrections on the clip, this gets a waveform icon that
opens the envelope graph, used to change the clip properties in time.
Select the clip property from the list in the top left corner. At first
this is constant in time, showing a flat line on the graph. If you place
the red marker in time and use the rhombus button above, you create a
marker called keyframe, saving the current property value in the instant
of time it is placed. In this way, if you place two or more keyframes in the
time saving different values, you create an envelope curve that changes
the property during time. You can drag each keyframe horizontally to move
it in time and vertically to change the value it saves.
You can also select any keyframe and use use the options above to shape
the curve. Use CMD+X (or CTRL+X on Windows) to remove the selected
keyframe.
Whereas to return to a static property you can use the Revert button on
the Inspector panel to delete all the keyframes on the curve.
The Effects Library on the left collects transitions, effects and text
templates ready to use inside Resolve.
To add video and audio transitions just drag and drop these on the clip
edges or between two clips close enough. Visual transitions are made by
either adding special effects or changing the clip opacity in time.
Whereas Audio transitions change the clip volume during time.
To adjust the transition just select it and use the Inspector panel and
the envelope graph as seen for the standard clips. Make sure to zoom in
enough in case you do not see the waveform icon.
To change the transition effect, drag and drop another on it. To remove
the transition, select it and use the Backspace key.
Very basic linear transitions can be added by dragging the white markers
from the corners of the clip.
Inside the OpenFX and the AudioFX section
you can find visual and audio effects you can drop on this clips. These
will show an FX icon in a corner. These effects can be tuned from the
Inspector panel, under the OpenFX section in case of visual effects and
below the audio properties in case of audio effects. You can adjust the
effects properties and change these in time just like the standard clip
properties.
On some effects you can also enable the OpenFX Overlay mode to edit some
effect properties directly on the main Preview.
Next to the effect name, use the bin button to remove the effect and the
vertical arrows to change the effect order.
From the Titles section you can drag and drop pieces of text inside your
project, which can be either static (Titles) or animated (Fusion Titles).
These text clips are contained inside Video Tracks in grey color and can
be managed just like standard clips.
In case of static titles, you can use the Text section of the Inspector
panel to type text and adjust its properties, such as color, size, style,
distribution, shadow and also background color.
In case of Fusion Titles, you can edit the text properties under the
Fusion section and use the Fusion workspace to add animations and chain
effects to the text.
To learn more about Fusion workspace, check out our dedicated video
in our YouTube channel!
To render and export your video just switch to the Deliver workspace.
At the bottom, select the part of the project to export by adjusting the
highlighted region. Then, under Render Settings, adjust the rendering
options to use. Choose Custom to use your own setup; YouTube or Vimeo to
export and upload to 4K 2160p videos with the correct template for
these sites; and choose any from Final Cut to Pro Tools to export your
project on proper file formats for these. Choose Audio Only to export just
the audio part.
At the bottom set the video Filename, where to save it on Location and
adjust all the rendering options, such as video format, resolution and
frame rate under Video; bit depth under Audio; and file metadata under
File.
At this point just click on Add to Render Queue to save these options
and video name under a new job inside the Render Queue panel on the right.
You will have to select the job to export and then go to Start Render!
Thanks for watching this video! Make sure to check our YouTube channel for
more free and outstanding video guides for DaVinci Resolve!