Many creators have already switched from Adobe Premiere to DaVinci Resolve, and now the developer, Blackmagic Design, goes after Lightroom and Photoshop. The Australian firm simply unveiled DaVinci Resolve 21 in beta on the NAB 2026 broadcast conference with a model new web page referred to as Picture designed to allow you to do issues like crop and color-correct nonetheless photos. On the identical time, the brand new model introduces video AI instruments that may age a topic or reshape their facial options.
DaVinci Resolve has all the time allow you to edit images as clips on a video timeline, however now it is drastically simplified with the Picture web page. You possibly can import and handle pictures, together with RAW information, immediately into the brand new web page. Then, you alter them utilizing the node-based Colour web page that gives related and arguably much more highly effective instruments than Adobe’s Lightroom.
Simply as with video, the Colour web page contains major coloration correction, curves, qualifiers and energy home windows (together with noise discount, sharpening and extra). Nonetheless, the place Resolve’s node-based workflow actually shines for picture enhancing. You possibly can add nodes in sequence or parallel to construct complicated grades, then save them to use to different photos or a whole picture album. You can even reframe and crop photos at their authentic supply decision and facet ratio, with out affecting the unique picture high quality.
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The LightBox view helps you to see a whole album with grades utilized. “Choose any picture and grade it dwell whereas seeing the outcomes replace throughout the entire assortment in actual time. Filter by graded, ungraded, star score, flag and clip coloration,” Blackmagic Design explains in a press release. Albums, in the meantime, allow you to construct collections such as you do in Lightroom. These additionally seem as timelines within the Colour, Reduce and Edit pages for simple entry.
For professional photographers, the Colour web page contains digital camera controls that allow you to tether a Sony or Canon digital camera to Resolve for dwell picture seize, whereas adjusting settings like ISO, publicity and white stability. It can save you seize presets to “lock in a constant look earlier than clients shoot,” in line with Blackmagic.
Different Resolve instruments additionally work with the Picture web page, just like the AI Magic Masks that allows you to make one click on picks of an object or individual. It is also potential to do superior VFX on nonetheless images utilizing Resolve’s Fusion web page, or add OpenFX or FusionFX filters immediately on the Picture web page. Lastly, you possibly can collaborate with others utilizing Blackmagic Cloud, thought that does require a paid subscription.
I briefly examined the colour instrument and, as somebody who’s admittedly accustomed to DaVinci Resolve, I discovered it simple to understand. It is easy to import and manage photos (simpler than Lightroom for my part) and is as highly effective as Lightroom’s Develop web page for many changes, although I actually missed the latter’s “Readability” instrument. The node primarily based workflow is highly effective, and Resolve makes it simpler to use changes to a number of photos. Once you’re able to export, that is performed by means of a particular photo-only model of the “Export” web page and is comparatively intuitive as nicely. Whether or not or not I will cancel my Photoshop/Lightroom subscription stays to be seen, nonetheless.
Blackmagic Design
On high of the Picture web page, Blackmagic Design introduced quite a lot of new instruments for video and VFX as nicely. Among the many most attention-grabbing ones are a sequence of AI instruments for facial changes. The AI Face Age Transformer instruments helps you to analyze a face, enter the topic’s age and alter the age offset slider so as to add issues like wrinkles and facial fullness. You can even change the best way a topic seems by means of the AI Face Reshaper instrument that allows you to alter the eyes, nostril, mouth, eyebrows and general face form. Plus, you get an AI Blemish Removing characteristic that reduces the looks of superficial pores and skin imperfections like pimples, discoloration and huge pores, whereas retaining the pores and skin’s pure texture.
One other instrument that can little question get used rather a lot is AI UltraSharpen that may upscale video “to make beforehand unusable footage sharp in increased resolutions,” in line with the corporate. It will also be used to enhance slight focus errors. In the meantime, the AI Movement Deblur fixes barely blurred photos, making it notably helpful for gradual movement and freeze body pictures.
Different key new upgrades, to call just some, embody the power to edit Fusion results from throughout the Reduce and Edit pages, the addition of the Krokodove library of compositing instruments and new immersive VR instruments for supply to platforms like Meta Quest and YouTube VR. Many of the new options can be found in Blackmagic Design’s free model of DaVinci Resolve, although a few instruments (AI Magic Masks and Movie Look Creator) are solely obtainable with the paid, $295 DaVinci Resolve Studio model. A whole checklist of recent options is here and you’ll obtain the free and paid variations here.
