How to Color Grade ANY Video in Davinci Resolve

Using Davinci Resolve might seem like a daunting task but rest assured it’s a completely attainable goal, as long as you have a little bit of patience and are willing to mess around a bit. But of course, at Digital Spark Studios, we like to our clients a little peek behind the curtain of what goes into our post-production process, so below, we’re detailing exactly how you can color grade any video in Davinci Resolve.

You can follow this step by step process even if you don’t have access to the original project file or the raw media. It’s quick, it’s simple, and it’s all outlined below!

Step 1: Import Your Media

Naturally, you can’t work on a video if there’s no video! Start off by going down to the media tab on the bottom left hand of the screen. Then you’ll want to navigate to your video file in the media browser and select the video you’re working on. Normally you would want to import the video into the program, but in this case, since we’re working with a flattened video file here, we’re going to right-click the video and go to “Scene Cut Detection...” which is where all of the work will be done. This will open up a new dialogue window.

Step 2: Scene Detect

This new window is called “Scene Detect”. In the top section, you’ll initially see 2 frames, although there will be 3 during the editing process. The frames are arranged in this format:

Left Side/Frame: The blank space on the left will be the frame before the cut.

Middle Frame: This will be the frame after the cut.

Right Frame: This will be the frame after the after cut, meaning 2 frames forward from there.

Once here, Davinci Resolve will start to look at exposure, contrast, saturation, color, and any differences between the frames by analyzing every single frame. This is how the program detects cuts- by looking for differences between frames.

Step 3: Auto Scene Cut Detect

Moving down to the bottom section of your screen, you’ll see a pink line that you can think of as the threshold or the tolerance of how much of a difference in a frame needs to be noticed for Resolve to make a cut. We typically have the line set to around 30%. When it’s set, you’ll click “Auto Scene Cut Detect”. As the program runs, it will show a green spike on the bottom to let you know that it has detected a cut. The higher the green spike, the more confident the program is that there should be a cut there. This is how Resolve does the heavy lifting so you don’t have to manually make those cuts.

Step 4: Review Resolve’s Cuts

Davinci Resolve is great, but there’s no replacement for your expertise! Once the program is finished making cuts, take a look at its work by looking at the bottom right-hand pane and scroll through the timecoded frames to make sure there’s a difference between the left frame and the center frame. As long as they’re different, Resolve has done its job! You’ll also want to check the cuts that are just above the threshold that you set to make sure those work for you.

Step 5: Review the Cuts Resolve Didn’t Make

Move down to the bottom section of your screen and take a look at the little gray lines. Those gray lines indicate that Resolve has noticed a difference, but hasn’t made a cut. You can use the left and right arrows to tab through those gray lines. In our example, you can see that those gray lines are a result of shooting our video directly into the sun, and the changes come from the sun going in and out of the frame. This is why 30% is a good threshold for cuts. That way subtle changes don’t confuse Resolve into making a cut.

Step 6: Add Cuts to Media Pool

Once you’ve fully reviewed the cuts, you’ll want to go down to the bottom right of the screen and click “Add Cuts to Media Pool”. A box will pop up, asking if you want to change the timeline frame rate and video format to match, which you will want to do, since you want the timeline to be the same as the clip. Once you hit “Change”, you can exit out of the “Scene Detect” window and go back into the regular resolve media pool.

Step 7: Create a New Timeline

From here, editing works like any other timeline would! You’ll want to follow this process:

1. Select the first frame.

2. “Shift” click the last frame, which will select all frames

3. Right-click to get an options list

4. Select “Create New Timeline Using Selected Clips”

5. Check “Create”

6. Open up the Timeline

If you’ve followed the process at this point you’ll have a fully edited timeline as if they are individual clips.

Step 8: Adjust Color Grading

Once you have your edited timeline, you can go into the color panel and grade the video as if you have access to the original media. It’s not necessarily ideal, it’s always better to have the original file, but this process is certainly preferable to making the cuts yourself!

And there you have it! Go forth and put your video editing to the test! Or, if you’re still thinking that you’d like some professional help, contact us at Digital Spark Studios. We’d love to help you out!