DaVinci Resolve Workflow for Beginners: A Complete Guide

Open DaVinci Resolve. Create a new project. Now what?

The seven tabs at the bottom of the screen — Media, Cut, Edit, Fusion, Color, Fairlight, Deliver — represent an entire post-production pipeline. Most beginners dive into the Edit page and never leave. They miss the workflow that makes Resolve genuinely powerful, and they end up fighting the interface instead of using it.

The Seven-Page Structure (And Why It Matters)

DaVinci Resolve is five tools in one:

Media — Import, organize, and preview footage
Cut — Fast assembly editing for rough cuts
Edit — Precision editing with layers, effects, transitions
Fusion — Visual effects and compositing
Color — Color correction and grading
Fairlight — Audio mixing and sound design
Deliver — Export settings and render queue

You don’t need every page for every project. A simple YouTube video might live entirely in Cut and Deliver. A short film might touch all seven.

The sequence stays the same: Import → Organize → Edit → Color → Audio → Export.

Step 1: Project Setup and Import (Media Page)

Start in the Media page. This is where footage enters Resolve and gets organized before you touch the timeline.

Create a New Project

Open Resolve and click New Project
Name it descriptively: 2026-03-27_Travel_Vlog_Bali
Click Create

You’ll land in the Media page by default.

Import Your Footage

Three ways to import:

Drag and drop: Pull files from Finder/Explorer directly into the Media Pool
File → Import Media: Opens a file browser dialog
Right-click in Media Pool → Import Media: Same result

For beginners, drag and drop is fastest. Resolve creates proxies automatically if you’ve enabled that setting (Preferences → Timeline → Proxy Mode).

Create Bins for Organization

The Media Pool is your organizational hub. Create bins (folders) to separate:

Footage — Raw video files
Audio — Music, sound effects, voiceover
Graphics — Titles, overlays, logos, B-roll
Photos — Stills for edits

Select all clips of one type, right-click, and choose Create New Bin From Selection. Name it. Repeat.

This step is boring, and that’s why most beginners skip it. Don’t. If you dump 200 clips into one bin, you’ll spend half your editing time hunting for the right one instead of actually editing.

Step 2: First Pass — Rough Assembly (Cut Page)

The Cut page is designed for speed. You can do full edits here, but it’s optimized for getting footage onto the timeline fast.

Why Start in Cut Instead of Edit?

Double viewer: Source and Record viewers side by side
Lightbox view: See all clips at once, scrub quickly
Fast append: Add clips to timeline with keyboard shortcuts
Trim in place: Make cuts without switching tools

If you have 50 clips and need a rough cut in 20 minutes, Cut is the place.

Quick Assembly Workflow

Select a clip in the Media Pool
Find the good part: Scrub in the Source viewer
Set In/Out points: I for In, O for Out
Append to timeline: Press A or click the Append button
Repeat for all clips

The result is an assembly edit with all your footage on the timeline. It won’t be polished — that’s the point. Get everything in place first, refine later.

Keyboard Shortcuts to Learn Now

Space — Play/Pause
J/K/L — Shuttle backward/stop/forward
I / O — Set In/Out points
A — Append clip to timeline
/ — Play in to out
Cmd+B (Mac) / Ctrl+B (Windows) — Split clip at playhead

Learn these six. You’ll use them on every single project.

Step 3: Precision Editing (Edit Page)

Switch to the Edit page for the detailed work — trimming clips, adding transitions, layering audio, applying effects.

Interface Overview

The Edit page has four main areas:

Timeline (bottom): Your sequence, with multiple video and audio tracks
Viewer (top right): Preview window with transport controls
Media Pool (top left): Your organized bins
Inspector (top right, tabbed): Clip properties, effects, audio controls

Basic Editing Tasks

Trim clips:

Hover the edge of any clip. The cursor changes to a trim tool.
Drag left or right to extend or shorten.
For frame-precision, click the clip and use Cmd+Shift+Left/Right (Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right (Windows).

Add transitions:

Open the Effects Library (top left, Effects tab)
Drag a transition (Dissolve, Dip to Black) between two clips
Adjust duration in the Inspector

Add text titles:

Effects → Titles → drag a title to the timeline
Double-click to edit text
Adjust font, size, position in the Inspector

Layer audio tracks:

Your video clips already have audio attached.
Add music: drag an audio file from Media Pool to an empty audio track (A2, A3, etc.)
Adjust levels: hover over the audio clip’s waveform line and drag up/down

Step 4: Color Correction and Grading (Color Page)

The Color page is Resolve’s signature. DaVinci built its reputation on color grading — many editors use Resolve only for color, doing everything else in Premiere or Final Cut.

The Difference Between Correction and Grading

Correction = Fixing problems (exposure, white balance, contrast) Grading = Creating a look (color style, mood, atmosphere)

Do correction first. Then grade. Skipping correction and jumping straight to a “cinematic look” is the fastest way to produce footage that looks bad in a way you can’t quite identify.

Primary Correction Workflow

Nodes panel: You’ll see one node by default. This is Node 01.
Color Wheels (bottom left): Adjust Lift (shadows), Gamma (midtones), Gain (highlights)
Primary adjustments:
- Drag Lift down for deeper blacks
- Drag Gain up for brighter whites
- Adjust Gamma for overall exposure
- Use the Temperature slider to fix white balance

One node, three adjustments. That’s often enough for correction.

Create a Look (Grading)

After correction, add a new node:

Right-click in the Nodes panel → Add Node → Add Serial Node
This creates Node 02, connected to Node 01
Use Node 02 for creative grading: color tints, contrast stylization, saturation shifts

Keep it subtle. The goal is natural-looking footage with a consistent mood across all clips — not a color science experiment.

Match Shots Across Clips

If your video has 20 clips from the same shoot, you don’t want to grade each one individually.

Grade the first clip
Right-click on the clip in the timeline → Apply Grade to All Clips
Resolve applies Node 01 and Node 02 to every selected clip

Fine-tune individual clips as needed. The bulk of the work is done.

Step 5: Audio Mixing (Fairlight Page)

Fairlight is Resolve’s audio workstation. For simple projects, you might never open it — the Edit page’s audio tools are enough. For anything with dialogue, music, and sound effects competing for attention, Fairlight is where you fix it.

Basic Audio Tasks in Fairlight

Normalize audio: Select clip → Cmd+Shift+N (Mac) / Ctrl+Shift+N (Windows)
Add Fairlight FX: Compression, EQ, noise reduction (Effects Library → Fairlight FX)
Audio automation: Click the dropdown on any track → Auto → choose Volume or Pan
Add keyframes: Click the audio track automation line and drag points

Quick Audio Workflow for Video

Normalize dialogue/vlog audio to -12dB to -6dB
Set music levels to -18dB to -24dB under dialogue
Add light compression to even out volume fluctuations
Apply noise reduction if background hiss is audible

You don’t need to become an audio engineer. But these four steps are the difference between “sounds amateur” and “sounds clean.”

Step 6: Export (Deliver Page)

You’ve edited, graded, mixed. Time to render.

Render Settings for Common Platforms

YouTube (1080p):

Format: MP4
Codec: H.264
Resolution: 1920×1080
Frame rate: Match your footage (23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30)
Bitrate: 10-15 Mbps

YouTube (4K):

Format: MP4
Codec: H.265
Resolution: 3840×2160
Bitrate: 35-45 Mbps

Instagram Reels / TikTok:

Format: MP4
Codec: H.264
Resolution: 1080×1920 (9:16 vertical)
Frame rate: 30fps
Bitrate: 8-12 Mbps

Add to Render Queue

In the Deliver page, set your format, codec, resolution
In the timeline viewer, set In/Out points if you only want to export part of the project
Click Add to Render Queue
Review settings in the Render Queue (left panel)
Click Render All

Resolve renders in the background. You can keep editing while it works.

Common Beginner Pitfalls

Working in the wrong page. Trying to color grade in the Edit page is like trying to mix audio in Photoshop. Each page has a job — use it.

Skipping organization. If your Media Pool is one giant bin of 200 clips, every edit takes longer than it should. Organize upfront.

Not using keyboard shortcuts. Mouse-only editing is slow. Learn J/K/L for shuttling and I/O for in/out points immediately. The speed difference is dramatic.

Over-grading. Resist the urge to push every color wheel to the max. Subtle corrections look professional. Saturated, crushed-black disasters don’t.

Ignoring audio. Bad audio ruins good video faster than anything else. Spend 5-10 minutes in Fairlight balancing levels. Your viewers will notice the difference even if they can’t articulate why.

The Workflow in Six Steps

Media: Import, organize into bins
Cut: Rough assembly, fast cuts
Edit: Precision editing, transitions, titles, effects
Color: Correction first, grading second
Fairlight: Normalize, balance, clean
Deliver: Format, codec, resolution, render

The specifics change — a vlog needs less color work than a documentary — but the sequence stays the same. DaVinci Resolve is built around this pipeline. Once you internalize it, the interface stops being overwhelming and starts being fast.