Resolve Grading in One Node

I’ve written numerous articles about streamlining Resolve color correction/grading workflows. Sure, at rare times a complex node tree is called for. Add to that tons of YouTube videos about how to get a ‘film look’. The truth is that when actual films were graded by a lab color timer (the film world’s equivalent of a video colorist), the available tools were rather simple. There simply was no complex windowing and masking in the way Resolve and other applications allow.

I wrapped up my previous post talking about grading in just one node. I’m going to elaborate on that now. When your timeline working space is set to DaVinci Wide Gamut/Intermediate, you are working in a colorspace-aware environment. There actually is no reason to use CSTs, LUTs, DRTs, and other tools. Those other tools are simply shortcuts. You can actually grade manually and the Resolve software takes care of the colorspace conversion issues.

The DaVinci Resolve Color Wheels palette includes three modes to balance and adjust exposure and contrast for your shots. (I will skip HDR Wheels in this discussion.) From left to right, you have Lift/Gamma/Gain wheels, Color Bars, and Log Wheels (Shadow/Midtone/Highlights). All three feature an RGB Offset control and common adjustment values for contrast, shadow, highlights, saturation, detail, etc. The Lift/Gamma/Gain Wheels and the Color Bars adjust the same parameters, but using different controls.

The difference between the Lift/Gamma/Gain wheels and the Log Wheels is how the three regions overlap in one set of controls versus the other. The Shadow/Midtone/Highlights (Log) wheels control tighter sections of the image with less overlap. You can use any of the controls (as well as HDR Wheels) on any type of image – SDR, HDR, log, Rec 709, etc. It’s whatever does the job you need.

While the steps I’m going to outline are specific to DaVinci Resolve, you can use a similar set of processes with the internal color correction tools in Premiere and Final Cut Pro. This workflow is ideal when correcting log footage, but can also be used on regular Rec 709 video. If you are working with log footage, be sure to turn off any color management features that might automatically convert it into Rec 709 before starting.

Step 1 – Exposure/Contrast – Select the Log Wheel panel. Adjust the ‘rotary dials’ at the bottom of the Shadow and Highlights wheels. (These are the same as the rings around the trackballs on the hardware panels.) Drop the Shadows to about the 10% range on the waveform scope. Raise the Highlights to about the 90% range on the waveform scope. Adjust the Contrast control to spread out the image a bit more. Adjust the Pivot control to shift the midpoint of the contrast range brighter or darker.

Step 2 – Saturation – Increase Saturation. The default value is 50. Depending on the appearance, increasing that to somewhere between 65 and 75 should be about right.

Step 3 – Curves – Start with the Custom Curve and add points at about 1/3 and 2/3 along the line. Shift the sections above and below slightly to create a subtle s-curve. This will result in a more filmic appearance to the image contrast. However, making these changes will often add a saturation build-up in the dark and bright areas of the image. One of the keys to the ARRI ALEXA color science is that saturation is decreased at the extremes. Select the Luma Vs Sat Curve and add points at about the 20% and 55% points. Now drag down the two ends of the curve line. This will decrease saturation in the shadow and highlight ranges. This transition should be gradual. Depending on the image content, you may or may not want to drag the line all the way down to 0.

Step 4 – RGB Offset/Printer Lights – The last step is to adjust color balance as needed. You can do this with the Temperature and Tint controls, but it’s often preferable to use the Offset wheel. The ‘rotary dial’ under the wheel controls global exposure. Adjust the wheel to change global color balance by using the mouse or the offset trackball on one of Blackmagic’s control panels. The numbers under the wheel represent the specific RGB values and default to 25/25/25. However, this balance can also be adjusted using Printer Lights, which is what these numbers indicate.

Printer Lights were how a film color timer (colorist) corrected a film image. DaVinci Resolve uses a digital equivalent that correlates to the Offset wheel. You can also adjust the RGB ratio using the keyboard’s number pad as hotkeys. These can be adjusted in plus or minus full, half, or quarter Printer Light increments. Enter values for red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, and yellow. For example, the 7, 8, and 9 number keys give you one full Printer Light increase for red, green, and blue, respectively. Type 7 and the Offset value for red changes from 25 to 26 and the image becomes slightly more red.

Step 5 – Additional Corrections – By now you should have a pretty good looking image as a starting point. From here it’s easy to push more stylized color grading into the the three regions of the image using the Shadow/Midtone/Highlights wheels in the Log panel. Or hop to the Lift/Gamma/Gain wheels for a broader treatment.

Everything that I’ve covered has all been done in a single node. Adding more nodes is purely optional. For example, you might want to add a film grain texture. No sweat. Add a second serial node and apply the Film Grain effect. Adjust the grain settings to taste. The possibilities with DaVinci Resolve are nearly limitless. Just be sure to start with a solid foundation, which can be a simple as just one node.

©2026 Oliver Peters

Kiive Paradox FX – Round 2

I previously reviewed Kiive Audio’s entry round of their new line of Paradox effects. Kiive has now expanded the line with three additional plugins – Stereo Distortion, Mod Filter, and PlasmaVerb. As with Chorus and VC Rotary, these each add a bit more than simply another variation of this type of effect.

Paradox – Stereo Distortion is primarily a distortion filter to add saturation and drive to instruments. It works particularly well with electric guitars. You have the usual drive and warmth controls, but then the Advanced menu lets you tweak this further. For example, you can control the frequency of the drive signal impacting the saturation. There’s also an Age control that adjusts the degradation timing of the harmonics.

Paradox – Mod Filter is like an auto-wah guitar effect. There are filter sweep range settings for high and low points along with resonance settings. In the Advanced menu you get control of filter types, tempo, and more. In my test mix, when I applied this to a guitar track, I ended up with a musical sound that was almost synth-like. A very cool effect indeed.

Paradox – PlasmaVerb is a plate-style reverb effect with additional modulation controls. You have controls for contours, spacing, delay, and decay. In the Advanced menu you can control modulation parameters. While you can use this effect on any instrument or vocal, it works ideally well for guitars.

As with most other Kiive Audio effects, there’s a standard top bar to access presets, input and output level controls, and meter calibration. You can also access presets from the front panel of the plugin UI.

Bonus Round – Lunchbox Amp Sim

This one isn’t new, but something I also used on my guitar tracks. I’m a Logic Pro user. It comes with a number of nice guitar and base amplifier simulations. I also have a few third-party software amps. Kiive’s Lunchbox Amp holds up nicely to these. It seems to be based on a Vox amp and includes four cabinet options. In addition to its EQ settings, you have three integrated stomp boxes (guitar effects pedals) – overdrive, echo, and reverb. Each can be enabled/disabled and adjusted separately.

You might already be familiar with Kiive’s channel strip emulations, collaboration with AudioScape, or other mix effects. These new endeavors expand Kiive Audio as a broad option for musical effects. Kiive plugins are available individually or in bundles and offer a 14-day, full-featured trial. There’s simple authorization for purchased effects, which match all of the standard audio plugin formats.

©2026 Oliver Peters

DaVinci Resolve Workflow Simplified Again

I’ve posted a number of articles about keeping your DaVinci Resolve color grading workflows simple. Several of these have focused on using third-party DCTL effects (DaVinci color transform language). Some free, some paid.

This approach works well, but DCTL effects have two downsides. The first is that usually two CST (color space transform) nodes are required at both ends of your node tree. That’s to move you from a log camera space to the intermediate DaVinci space and then finally out to Rec 709. The second is that these DCTL effects are usually adjusted by sliders. Therefore, they require you to use the mouse and can’t be controlled from one of the DaVinci color panels. That can be quite fatiguing on your hands and wrists, especially if you are older and working a timeline with hundreds of clips to grade.

In this post, I’m offering four different ways to keep things simple without overthinking your workflow.

Referent

I recently ran across Cullen Kelly’s free Referent LUTs. Kelly is a colorist and YouTuber, whose website offers a number of tools and services. Referent is a bundle of camera-specific .cube LUTs (color look-up tables). Each is designed for Resolve as a DRT (display rendered transform) – not to be confused with a DaVinci timeline file.

Each LUT transforms a camera’s log space (like ARRI Log-C or Sony S-Log) to Rec 709. The bundle includes 11 folders organized by camera manufacturer with one or two LUTs in each. These get installed into Resolve’s LUT folder (Project Settings > Color Management > Open LUT Folder). You can also use these on-set in order to view a camera’s output as corrected video in a monitor.

The philosophy behind the Referent LUTs is twofold. First, it eliminates the need to use other LUTs or CSTs in order to convert log camera footage. Second, the approach is to grade in nodes applied before the node with one of these LUTs. By doing so, you are working in the native color space of that camera. These LUTs are not purely technical LUTs, which is why they are considered DRTs. There’s a bit of ‘creative adjustment’ made in these LUTs.

Camera-based grading

Set up the project as you normally would. Typically that’s using DaVinci Wide Gamut/Intermediate for the timeline and Rec 709-A (or Rec 709-Scene) as the output (on a Mac). Generally a node tree of about five to seven nodes is plenty. For example, Nodes 1, 2, and 3 would be for the primary and two steps of secondary grading. Node 4 gets the Referent LUT for that camera type (ARRI, Sony, Blackmagic, etc). Nodes 5, 6, and 7 would be for additional tweaks and ‘looks’, such as film grain, a film stock, etc. Most of your color correction happens in the first few nodes before the conversion to Rec 709 in the fourth node. This means that exposure, contrast, saturation, temperature, tint, etc are all being altered while still inside of the camera’s native color space.

If you have various clips in the timeline from a mixture of cameras, then each camera type would get the specific LUT intended for that camera model’s color science. There are ways to group clips of the same camera together, as well as to work with a single grade for the ‘look’ portion across the entire timeline. For instance, I often add film grain and a film emulation ‘look’ as timeline nodes.

Freelab

Another similar approach to Referent is Freelab from Colourlab AI. This is a free download that can be used in Resolve Studio and Premiere. Obviously, it’s intended as a ‘gateway’ to get you to purchase the full Colourlab AI application, but that’s optional.

You can use Freelab to convert camera log to Rec 709 as an OFX (Open FX) in Resolve. However, Colourlab AI also offers a set of free stylized looks. You can import these into the Freelab plugin to create a nice starting point to your grade. If you only use Freelab, the workflow is like Referent. Therefore, apply some nodes before and after the node the Freelab node as needed. Unlike Referent (but like CineDream described below). it can also be applied as an effect in the Resolve Studio edit page. This gives you some grading options without shifting to the Color page.

CineDream

I’ve written about CineDream in the context of Final Cut Pro, but the same installation also adds plugins to Premiere and DaVinci Resolve Studio. For Resolve, it adds three OFX (Open FX) plugins that can be applied to clips in the edit timeline or to nodes in the Color page. The Full Editor effect is a conduit linked to the standalone CineDream application, which is part of the installation. Apply the effect, open it and now you’re working in the CineDream application. When you are finished, apply the graded look to the clip in Resolve.

In addition to the CineDream Full Editor effect, the other two effects are the Basic Correction and Final Grading plugins. These work inside of Resolve and don’t send you out to the standalone CineDream application. You can literally do all of your grading in two nodes in the Color page or with both effects stacked onto a clip in the Edit page. Apply the Basic Correction effect to the first node for log conversion and primary color correction. Add the Final Grading effect to the second node for film emulation, including film stocks, halation, bloom, and grain.

I’ll skip the explanation of how to use the controls, because it’s essentially the same as I’ve discussed in my previous articles about CineDream and Final Cut Pro. Refer back to those for more details.

Or, just go commando

I’ve described two nice ways to work; but, conversion LUTs, CSTs, and DRTs are simply shortcuts. There’s no rule that says you have to work that way. Resolve is color space-aware, so with the timeline set to DWG/Intermediate, there’s no reason you couldn’t just manually grade camera log clips in a single node – no conversion nodes required. 

The Resolve interface specifically includes Log Wheels for that reason and even the DaVinci Resolve Micro Color Panel offers a Log mode. Grading log footage from scratch might not be as mathematically accurate as using a technical conversion. However, when you are color-correcting footage, you are adding style and visual enhancement, not simply converting the footage to Rec 709. That’s how I used to grade in the early days of RED and ARRI footage and it was perfectly fine then and still is today.

This method of grading can all be done in a single node. Add more nodes if you need to use windows to isolate areas within the shot – or to apply effects like film grain or film stock emulations.

Whichever solution you prefer, the end result is best with some practice on a range of clips and camera types. If you do a lot of regular color correction work in DaVinci Resolve, then I think an investment in at least the micro panel makes sense. In the long run, you’ll work faster, get better results, and save on wrist fatigue.

I’ll have more about working within a single Resolve node in an upcoming post.

©2026 Oliver Peters

sonible smart:chain

There are tons of audio plugins on the market that emulate vintage hardware. A few companies buck that trend by taking a modern approach – vintage in sound when called for, but with modern processing approaches and interface design. Austria’s sonible is a front runner in this space, offering innovative design coupled with what they call Sonic Intelligence. In short that’s their approach to artificial intelligence in audio plugins.

The latest in sonible’s ‘smart:’ product line is smart:chain, which is a combination of effects integrated into a single plugin. However, it goes far beyond traditional console channel strip plugins, such as the classic SSL 4K emulations. When you apply multiple instances of smart:chain to individual tracks, each of those tracks appear inside all of the smart:chain interfaces. Open a single instance of smart:chain and you can access and control the settings for any other smart:chain insert. Using smart:chain broadly across your entire mix almost makes it like a DAW within your DAW by providing central session control.

Start by analyzing the track. This enables smart:chain to automatically create its best match for the settings to apply to that track. You can give it a head start by selecting the closest option for track type, such as Drums-Kick or Guitar-Electric. Otherwise, leave in on Universal and let the plugin’s analysis make the best fit. Play the track and hit the big green button. Let it run until the analysis is complete. Do this for each and every track to which you’ve applied smart:chain. This provides a starting point for the mix. Once the yellow exclamation mark icon next to the track name disappears, learning has been completed.

Seven processing modules in a single chain

As a combo plugin, smart:chain features seven basic processes that flow in this order: Gate, Equalizer, De-Esser/De-Harsher, Input Rider, Compressor, Saturator, and Clipper. If you look at the center of the interface, the flow of these modules is left-to-right across the top and then left-to-right again across the bottom set. When you run the analysis pass, each function is automatically optimized for that track. You can enable/disable any individual process, as well as manually tweak the settings. However, you cannot change the processing order like some other channel strip plugins. Depending on the module, there are additional speed and style settings, like aggressive, smooth, fast, slow, etc. The De-Harsher control is selected for any instrument type, but then automatically switches to the De-Esser mode for vocal tracks.

Most of these effects are pretty straightforward and operate like other individual sonible plugins. So, the equalizer section works like smart:EQ 4 and the compressor like smart:comp 3 – each with a similar set of controls. The equalizer might require some more explanation, as it’s different from other digital EQs. In fact, if you’ve used the Logic Pro Mastering Assistant, the type of EQ curve derived there will look similar to the one in smart:chain.

After analysis, the result is an EQ curve with a number of small boosts and dips throughout. The intent is to improve the clarity of the track, rather than broadly boost or attenuate bass, midrange, or treble. You can globally increase or the decrease the intensity of those volume changes by pulling the blue line up or down. There’s also a warm-to-bright slider on the left, which creates a tilt-shift change in the angle of the EQ curve. Finally, double-click into the EQ graph to add manual points, in order to modify the affected section of the curve.

Group control

If that were all, then smart:chain would simply be another plugin with a collection of integrated effects. That would make it similar to a plugin like iZotope’s Ozone. But smart:chain is much more than that, because it includes a group function – what sonible dubs ‘connected mixing’.

As I stated above, any tracks with a smart:chain insert appear in the interface along the left side. You can click the ‘manage groups’ button to switch to the groups page. Here you create groups and drag the individual tracks into them, such as all vocals or all guitars. However, the number of tracks per group is limited. Modern rock recordings often feature more drum tracks than will fit into a single group, so you might have to create and organize Drums 1, Drums 2, etc. Same for any other set of instruments with a large number of tracks.

Back in the main interface, the new groups appear as named tabs above the equalizer section. Scroll left or right to see and access any of these tabs. You’ll also find a new sidebar on the left with Front, Middle, and Back sections. This is what sonible calls ‘intelligent depth staging’. Moving a track within the group from one section to the other changes the intensity of the EQ curve, with Front being the most accentuated. According to sonible, spreading your tracks across these three sections impacts the dimensionality of the sound by establishing separation, clarity, and a sense of depth across the mix. For instance, lead vocals would be in the Front section, but background singers would move to the Middle or even Back section.

Auto Leveling to balance the total mix

Finally, there is an Auto Leveling control. Turn it on and pick the genre – Pop, Blues, Rock, Rap, and more. According to the user guide, “Auto Leveling analyzes relationships between learned smart:chain instances and creates a genre-aware rough balance across the project. It is designed to eliminate repetitive gain staging at the start of a mix, not to replace the final balance decisions of the engineer.”

When Auto Leveling is engaged, volume control sliders appear below the Auto Leveling control and on each of the group tabs. Groups are not track stacks, instrument stems, or sub groups in the same way as your DAW would create. However, by adjusting mix sliders for each group along with the overall, these do function much the same as VCA groups in some DAWs. However, you cannot apply any further processing within smart:chain to any of the groups. In other words, you can’t add EQ or compression to the group as a whole unit within smart:chain. If your tracks have been routed into stems of similar instruments and onward into a mix bus, then there’s no reason you can’t add other plugin effects in addition to smart:chain. At a minimum, you would probably still insert reverb effects and mix bus compression/limiting.

Is it for you?

After working with smart:chain for a bit on several different mixes, it strikes me that using it extensively requires modifying your workflow. For one thing, you are applying a common set of effects across the entire mix. It’s not the same as inserting vintage API emulations across drums, SSL emulations onto your guitars, and Neve emulations across everything else. So if you decide to only work with smart:chain, then get the hang of it before diving in.

Remember that the analysis data has to go somewhere. Logic Pro stored it inside of the project file. The song mix using standard plugins was 54.5 MB in size. The exact same project using only smart:chain effects for all tracks ballooned to 1.18 GB. That’s not unreasonable, but worth considering.

Just to be clear, you don’t necessarily need to use it everywhere. For example, maybe it makes the most sense for your mix to only use it on the drum kit tracks. There is no absolute rule as to how you should use it. I generally found it to work well, however, it did lock up Logic Pro on me at least once in a 41-track mix. But then that’s on an Intel iMac and these days I should probably be running an Apple Silicon Mac.

Nevertheless, like all of sonible’s plugins, smart:chain is a solid product that performs well. It’s hard to say whether or not it will make you a faster or better mixer. It’s a different way of working and that takes some time to get used to.

sonible smart:chain installation is easy and the standard plugin formats are supported. Licensing is via activation code or iLok. A fully-functional 30-day trial is available to test before your buy. sonible is currently offering an introductory discount.

©2026 Oliver Peters

DaVinci Resolve – Six Apps in One

Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve/Resolve Studio is constructed as an integrated set of media tools. These have either been acquired and redesigned or developed from scratch by the Blackmagic team. Unlike application suites, such as Adobe Creative Cloud or Apple Creator Studio, Resolve integrates the various tasks all within a single piece of software. Resolve 21 now accommodates photography (Photo), two styles of editing (Cut and Edit), visual effects (Fusion), color correction (Color), and sound mixing (Fairlight). Just in time for IBC 2026, Blackmagic Design released DaVinci Resolve Studio/Resolve 21.1. As usual, there are a ton of new features, including AI assistance.

Competing applications, including Adobe Premiere and Avid Media Composer, also offer a range of functions inside of a single application. At the heart, these are still mainly editing tools. You may open different panels to access task-specific controls, but the overall look and feel doesn’t change. The key difference with Resolve is that the interface for the various pages changes based on the operations within that section of the application. Each of these task pages has a completely different look and set of controls, which changes the mode of operation. And so, it really is like working with six different applications – designed with a definite ‘left to right’ workflow – ingest, edit, effects, color, mix, and export.

Let’s talk workflow – a strategy to simplify

What if Resolve’s modal approach is too overwhelming or you just don’t need everything? The solution is to turn off the pages that you don’t want to see or use in your workspace. For instance, you might only want to edit and aren’t yet ready to dive into Fusion, Color, or Fairlight. Simply uncheck those pages (Workspace > Show Page) in the top menu. This declutters the interface for a streamlined workflow. When you are ready to tackle new pages, like Color, simply enable them and you are good to go.

A multi-suite facility can set up different workstations all running Resolve or Resolve Studio. Each can be dedicated to completely different tasks. One suite for photography, others for video editing and color correction, plus a dedicated mixing room. Blackmagic Design also offers a variety of hardware built for these different tasks, including editing keyboards, color correction panels with track balls, audio controllers with faders, and video and audio I/O interfaces.

In each of these examples, turn off all of the pages except the one intended for that room’s function. You may want to keep the Media and Deliver pages on for file ingest and export. However, that’s optional, because several of these pages include their own import and export commands. Let’s take a quick look at each of these six pages.

Photo

The Photo page is the newest addition that was just introduced as a key, new feature of Resolve 21. Essentially it competes with Adobe Lightroom and is the perfect place to work exclusively with still photographs within Resolve. Click here for my in-depth walk-through of how to use the Photo page.

Cut

The Cut page was introduced a few years ago as an addition to Resolve’s Edit page, which already existed. So, its existence is a head-scratcher. Cut is like a hybrid between Apple Final Cut Pro and legacy 2-VTR, ENG-style editing.

In fact, there’s even a source-tape mode that combines common source clips with sequential timecode into a tape-like timeline. The DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor keyboard is optimized for the Cut page. It’s reminiscent of working with two Sony BVU-800 or BetaCam videotape decks. While the configuration works well for cutting news packages, it’s also a functional starting point for other edits. Start on the Cut page for your basic assembly and they move to the Edit page for refinement.

Edit

If you come from any other NLE, then the Resolve Edit page is going to look the most familiar. It’s ideal whether you are rough cutting or finessing a commercial, show, or film. You can start in the Cut page and move here or simply stay in the Edit page the whole way. You’ll need Color and Fusion for color correction and advanced compositing. But if you are mainly editing, then the Edit page is it. The DaVinci Resolve Editor Keyboard is the Blackmagic controller designed for this page. Add one and editing becomes reminiscent of running a CMX linear online edit suite back in the day.

Fusion

Fusion is Resolve’s advanced visual effects compositing environment. The software was originally acquired from EyeOn. The effects are built with node trees and range from simple to very elaborate composites. You can combine effects to create custom templates. The node tree structure only appears within the Fusion page and is collapsed in the other pages as a single clip with nested effects nodes. Fusion Studio is also offered as a standalone application for use by VFX departments.

Color

The Color page was Resolve’s starting point after the initial DaVinci acquisition by Blackmagic Design. Everything else grew from there. While color correction is why most people use Resolve, the application has now become so much more, thus attracting editors looking for new options. Nevertheless, all color correction for the Cut and Edit pages happens in the Color page. If you are editing in Resolve, then it’s best to leave color correction and video noise reduction effects to last, so it doesn’t impede system performance. Naturally, Resolve can be the ‘hero’ application in a dedicated color correction suite. Blackmagic Design offers three hardware controllers for use with the Color page: the DaVinci Resolve Micro, Mini, and Advanced panels. The Micro will also work with the iPad version of Resolve via Bluetooth.

Fairlight

This brings us to the Fairlight page. It stems from the original Fairlight CMI hardware systems developed in the 1980s. When Blackmagic Design acquired the company, they retained the multitrack DAW side of Fairlight and integrated it as software running inside of Resolve. The Fairlight page is geared around mixing TV and film projects. That’s how the terminology and presets are labelled and organized. Nevertheless, it’s a perfectly capable music mixing application, as long as you don’t need instrument samples, a library of guitar amp models, etc. Blackmagic offers several different Fairlight Desktop controllers, along with larger, advanced mixing consoles. There are also two audio cards and a dedicated Fairlight Audio Interface. So it’s quite easy to build a mixing room completely based on Fairlight (Resolve).

At NAB 2026, Blackmagic Design introduced Fairlight Live, making it the second section of Resolve – along with Fusion Studio – that’s available as a standalone application. Fairlight Live is intended for live mixing scenarios, like events, podcasts, broadcasts, and more. The software is free and gives you all of the mixing and effects power of the Fairlight page in Resolve, minus the need to deal with media. There are three bespoke mixing panels, based on the number of motorized faders needed: Fairlight Live Audio Panel 10, 20, and 40.

To wrap things up, Blackmagic Design has developed a sophisticated application that can be approached in one of three different ways. First, advanced users can access every page as needed and work through a project, start to finish. Second, new users can turn off the more complex pages so they only focus on what’s needed, like the Edit page. Third, a production company can structure the application in several ways to optimize use based on different operations, such as editing in one suite and color in another. The danger in creating such a complex piece of software is bloat; but Blackmagic’s engineers have done a good job of avoiding that. Most users’ experiences with DaVinci Resolve and Resolve Studio continues to be smooth, in spite of its complexity under the hood.

©2026 Oliver Peters