DaVinci Resolve Review

Becoming familiar with professional video editing programs can feel overwhelming. You don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on a program that you don’t even know whether you’ll understand. With DaVinci Resolve, you get to have the feel of a high-end video editor for free!

This video editor from the Blackmagic Design family is a great way to work on projects on either Mac or PC. It is compatible with Blackmagic hardware controls and has some amazing tools to take your productions to the next level. 

DaVinci Resolve: at a Glance

As an overall program, DaVinci Resolve is one of the best choices for beginners and experienced editors alike. Taking these thoughts into account you can determine whether it is the right fit for you. 

The Score

DaVinci Resolve 

Ease of use: 9/10

Features:  8/10

Pricing:  10/10

Overall:  9/10

Features

Knowing how well a product is rated and why it is rated that way are 2 very different things. To better understand why DaVinci Resolve is so highly rated, here are the primary features of this software that make it stand out. 

As stated in the intro, DaVinci Resolve has a totally free version that offers you an exponential number of ways to edit your videos. While there are limitations, DaVinci Resolve lets you edit at least basic videos with no issues. The majority of the drawbacks are in the FX and what you can use without paying for the full version. 

DaVinci Resolve is without a doubt the top color-grading system in the world. This Blackmagic program has been used to color and finish more feature films and television shows than any other program out there. 

Whether you are in the free or paid version, you have access to the full color-grading capabilities of DaVinci Resolve. The setup is designed in such a way that beginners should feel comfortable when editing on their own. The user interface (UI) is laid out to mimic image-editing software with simple sliders and wheels to control the colors and contrasts. 

The Fairlight system housed within DaVinci Resolve is one of the best in the video editing world. With the ability to bring 3rd-party plugins into the mix, you never have to worry about not being able to get the sound you want. Most popular companies such as Waves and FabFilter are supported and compatible.

If you do not have experience with digital audio and do not have any plugins that you are familiar with, Fairlight offers its own selection of high-quality plugins for situations requiring noise removal, EQ, compression and much more.

Because this is audio for video, you can mix in basic stereo as well as varying degrees of surround sound such as 5:1 and 7:1.

Working with the free version, you get to use a number of transitions and video editing effects. However, when you look at all that is offered, you are fairly limited in what you can actually use. The majority of popular FX options in DaVinci Resolve require the paid version to even add them to your clips. 

But it’s understandable. You cannot offer everything on the free version and have no incentive to move to the paid option. 

The quality that DaVinci Resolve offers is extremely high considering it’s a free program. You can set the resolution anywhere from 720 x 480 to 3840 x 2160 Ultra HD and up to 60 frames per second (FPS). And if you want to edit at abnormal resolutions or switch to creating a video for TikTok or Instagram, you can use custom resolution to get just the right size.  

With this high video quality, you can make videos and films that go above and beyond for creating some of the best content you can.

Creating a new timeline is extremely simple — just press CTL + N if you are on PC, or Command + N if you are on Mac. If you don’t like to remember shortcuts, just go up to the File menu, and you will see a New Timeline option to click. 

Just remember that to switch timelines you need to be in the Edit Window. 

Keeping track of your work is super simple. There does not seem to be a way to switch between projects without completely closing out of DaVinci Resolve, but nonetheless, it is still easy to maneuver within. On the homepage, you can create projects as well as folders and move projects to different folders after the fact. 

If there is one type of product that Blackmagic Design is known for it is their hardware. The company has some of the best video controllers, converters and cameras for streaming and recording. If you are working even with the free version of DaVinci Resolve you can connect the hardware pieces to make your editing an efficient breeze. 

An Editing Masterpiece

Any great videos you create are not just thanks to the software you are using. It still takes skill and ability to recognize and carry out the changes required. Learning DaVinci Resolve is easy enough with countless videos available on the internet with walkthroughs on how to do any task. 

Take the chance to try out this free program. The updates are always free, and you can set it up to remind you to download the new versions as they are released. DaVinci Resolve is easily one of the greats in video editing and will not be losing that spot any time soon.