**In this video I’m going to share 10 tips for
DaVinci Resolve that will instantly save you time, improve your workflow and help to raise the
overall production value of your films.** Tip #1 Timeline Recovery. We’ve all been there, you’re
working on a complex edit and without noticing, you mess up something in your timeline.
You keep on grinding away only at the end to realise your mistake. ****Going
back into your history might solve the mistake but it will also undo all your
hard work and who has time for that? What if I told you that Resolve has been secretly
backing up your timelines for you and going back is just about knowing where to find it. If
you have Resolve 18.5 or 18.6 it’s enabled by default. Simply go to your timeline, right
click and select restore timeline backup. You’ll have a variety of timestamps to choose from
but the great thing is when you click on one, resolve will automatically create a separate
timeline so you can still recover some alterations from your current timeline if you need to. A bonus
tip here is to locate the timeline you’re working on in your media pool. Simply go to timeline in
the menu bar, scroll all the way to the bottom and select “Find Current Timeline in Media Pool”.
Special thanks to Chris Roberts for this tip. Tip #2 Timeline Shortcuts. Switching between timelines
has never been easier. Instead of going to the media pool to search for your timeline, you can
click this dropdown menu at the top and select the timeline of your choice. ****If you have dynamic
project switching enabled you can even do this between projects by clicking the dropdown
arrow on the project and viola, time saved! Tip #3 Color Stabilizer. If you ever have to deal
with a clip where the exposure changes midshot, this tool is a quick and easy fix without
the need to manually keyframe your grade. I use this on clips where auto
exposure was used or where the camera operator made an adjustment
during a key part I want to use. All you have to do is add the color stabiliser
to a node. Tap live region analysis. Select Stabilize Brightness. If there was a shift
in white balance you can also select white balance. In your clip find the frame you
are 100% happy with and you want the rest to conform to. Go to the Region of Analysis and
choose selected area. Find the area in your clip that you want to stabillize and draw the box
over it. Next you want to track the analysis by hitting the play button. This will go through the
entire clip and measure the data needed to do the necessary key frames. The color stabiliser
is only available in the Studio Version. Tip #4 Lightbox. This is one of the most underrated
features in resolve. I use it so often when grading that I made a shortcut for it. Mine is W
but you can choose what works for you. Lightbox gives you a visual overview of your timeline and
is the quickest way to jump between clips. When you click on a clip and exit, that clip will be
selected for grading. You can choose how much real estate you want to see for example if you
zoom in all the way it’s easier to spot frames that do not match. Zooming out a bit will give
you an overall picture of how colour flows in your project. When you have the frame comparison
feature turned on, you can also select multiple clips this way and going back will give you
a comparison between the frames selected. If you’ve gotten this far I want to thank you
for watching. I’m sharing a bonus tip at the end so make sure you stick around but I also want to
mention that I finally started working on my own Colour Grading Course, something a lot of you have
been asking for. This will be unlike anything I’ve ever done here on Youtube so if you want to be
notified make sure you sign up at the link below. Tip #5 Smart Reframe. The biggest headache
of dealing with vertical video is having to reframe horizontal video
especially when your subject is not staying in the centre of the frame.
****Using Resolves Neural AI engine you can let it intelligently reframe
it for you instead of dealing with manual keyframes. In your inspector click on
smart reframe and select one of 2 options, auto or reference point. I always try auto first
because it does a great job on human subjects. After a quick analysis your subject will stay
in the centre without a dime of effort on your part. This does a much better job than I could
do with keyframes and it only takes a few seconds to setup. If for some reason it’s not giving
you the desirable frame you can try choosing a reference point. Select the object or area you
want to keep centred and the software will do the magic. Since it uses the Neural AI engine this
feature is only available in the Studio version. Tip #6 Timeline Colours. If you’re like me, you like
to colour code your clips for easy referencing in the timeline. But what if you want to apply
batch changes or move all clips with a specific color. Instead of trying to select each color
manually you can simply go the the menu under timeline and choose “select clips with clip color”
and pick the color of your choice. In this example I wanted to update the color grade of all clips
of me talking to the camera so I just quickly select all the clips with the color yellow and
viola, I can apply the same grade without effort! Tip #7 Batch Audio Fades. Using fades & cross fades
on your audio clips is a necessary step to remove pop and breath sounds between cuts.
Adding fades to new clips and transitions to adjacent clips makes your audio flow better but
is a time consuming process. Instead of applying your crossfades individually, you can batch apply
them to an entire timeline in an instant. In the Fairlight page go to the fairlight menu and select
batch fade settings. Select Fade In, Crossfade and Fade out. Uncheck the override existing boxes. For
Fade in you want to keep it at Linear and select 3 Frames. For Fade Out choose exponential fade and
also 3 frames. For cross fades keep 2 frames and make sure it’s on equal power. To see how the
effect works I’m going to apply it in an area where I have an ending clip, a beginning clip and
adjacent clips. Select the entire audio track you want to apply the fades to. Go to the fairlight
menu and choose “Apply Batch Fades”. Viola, note how the relevant fades are applied to each
clip. The ending clip has an exponential fade out, the beginning has a linear fade in, and
the adjacent clips have small crossfades. Amazing right? I got this tip from Chadwick from
Creative Video Tips one of my favourite channels on Resolve. He made an in depth video about it
so if you’re not already subscribed go say Hi! Tip #8 Magic Mask. If there ever was a feature that
would make me buy the studio version over the free version this would be it. With Magic Mask
you can very quickly and easily select objects and isolate them for individual grading pleasure.
It does a fantastic job of understanding what is relevant in your selection and if for some reason
it includes something irrelevant you simply draw a negative line over it and it will deselect it.
In my short film Perseverance we had this POV shot from the helicopter and the hazy light made
the environment look flat. ****A quick fix here is using Magic Mask to isolate the inside of the
helicopter, inverting the mask to the outside and then making changes to the outside. Tracking the
movement is is simple as pressing the play button forward and viola, the background is isolated
perfectly without any form of halo or feathering. Tip #9 Highlight Clip in the media Pool. Finding a
selected clip in your timeline in the media pool is not exactly difficult but there’s a much
quicker way to do it. Go to your preferences and under user select editing. Scroll down
and select the option that says “always highlight current clip in the media pool”.
When you click on any clip in your timeline, it will automatically highlight it in
the media pool. This is great if you want to explore adjacent clips without
having to go search for it in the bins. Tip #10 De-Flicker. Another awesome way to
save footage that seems ruined. If for any reason there’s a flicker in your
footage, tweaking this plug-in could save it. From time lapses to flickering on a
screen this effect can work wonders. Just the other day I slowed down a video using
the LINKED IN DESCRIPTION. Although the results are remarkable it creates this
weird flicker and guess what solved it! And now for that bonus tip! If like me
you enjoy using luts you can actually create a shortcut to your favourite luts
without having to go and choose it in the dropdown menu every time. In the color
tab, simply go to the LUT window next to your gallery and toggle the small star
in the right corner. ****This will add the LUT to your favourites folder which you can
immediately select from the main dropdown menu. And that’s it. if you have any more questions
let me know in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer. Thanks so much for
watching and I’ll see you in the next one!
