Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve is a high-performance free color grading tool with a history dating back to the 1980s, but it was never considered a rival to Adobe’s Lightroom due to its video origins. Today, Blackmagic Design released a new beta version it might change people’s minds about it. The new Photo page lets you import RAW images, then adjust them using Resolve’s powerful color grading tools. You even have access to advanced visual effects and AI features not found in Lightroom.
When I saw the new feature, I immediately wondered if I could cancel my $20 per month Adobe Photography subscription (with Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC). Apparently I’m not alone. After trying it, I think I could do it because for me the photo is secondary to the video. However, photographers who have been using Lightroom for a long time would probably find it too painful to switch – at least for now.
The Photo page and Albums
I tested the new Photo page features and many of Resolve’s new filter effects, but be careful, the first beta is still buggy. I used it in the $295 DaVinci Resolve Studio app (which includes free lifetime updates), because it has a few extra features not found in the free version.
That said, DaVinci Resolve 21 now supports RAW photos from Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, and Sony, with more brands to follow. Blackmagic has committed to supporting RAW files for new cameras shortly after release, as Adobe does with Lightroom. It also supports TIFF, JPEG, HEIF and other photo file formats.
To organize files, you can think of Resolve projects as equivalent to Lightroom catalogs. You import photos into a project like you do a video, by dragging and dropping photos or folders into the media pool or using the “import” function. Resolve’s dedicated media file management page also supports RAW photos. I find Resolve’s import system to be simpler and more logical than Lightroom’s, with fewer steps required. You can also import a full or partial Lightroom catalog into Resolve.
Once your photos are in the media pool, you can select and organize them by file name, rating, colors, favorites and other tags. DaVinci Resolve Studio also offers a new feature called AI IntelliSearch that lets you visually identify photos based on their content using terms like “cats” or “dance.”
Photos can then be moved from the media pool to Albums, a new feature similar to Lightroom’s Collections. Albums enable several photo-specific features on the Color and Edit pages. In Edit, albums appear as simplified, single-track timelines, with each photo displayed as a two-second clip. This way, you can work with photos in the Color and Blend pages just like you do with videos.
You can crop and crop images in Photo (either by grabbing the size or dragging them) and make basic RAW-style adjustments to settings like exposure, highlights, and shadows. For more advanced grading (like you can do in Lightroom Develop), you need to go to the Color page.
Color and blending
On the Color page, you benefit from the same functions for photos as for video: primary and log color correction, curves, qualifiers, electric windows, noise reduction and sharpness. You can also use Resolve’s cutting-edge scopes, including parades, waveforms, vectorscopes, and histograms.
Once you’ve created an album, you can select it at the top of the Color Page Viewer, just like you would a video timeline. You can also tag and sort photos like you do in the Photo page.
Resolve’s node-based workflow really shines for photo editing. You can add nodes in series or parallel to create complex notes, then save and apply those notes to multiple images or an entire photo album. Resolve’s system for doing this via “still images” that show your note is more visual and powerful than Lightroom’s. You also get support for Resolve features used for video, such as lookup tables (LUTs) and the new Film Look Creator effect.
All of Resolve’s filter-style effects, like Vignette, Lens Blur, and Film Damage, are available directly from the Photo page. These include some of DaVinci Resolve Studio’s new AI effects (not available in the free version) like AI CineFocus, AI Face Age Transformer, and AI Ultrafocus. This gives the app a leg up on Lightroom, which only offers comparable functionality through third-party plugins.
If you want even more advanced effects, the Fusion page is After Effects’ equivalent of Resolve. There you’ll find tools like Warp, Lights, and Paint, which let you perform Photoshop-style cloning. Resolve 21 now includes Krokodove filters with features like text warping and animation.
This raises the question of whether you can perform multi-frame compositing in the Photo page like you can in Photoshop or After Effects. In short, this is not possible because Photo only supports one image at a time. However, once you’ve adjusted a RAW image, you can drop it into a video timeline where your color and other adjustments will be carried over. Then you can stack multiple images and use any of Resolve’s composition tools from the Edit or Fusion pages. It’s quite complicated compared to using Photoshop, but it’s the only way to combine multiple images at the moment.
Once you have finished grading and adjusting the images, there are two ways to export them. One of them is the Quick Export feature which provides minimal settings such as file type, name and resolution. The best method is to use Resolve’s Deliver page, which now has dedicated photo features when working with an album. There you can control size parameters such as short and long sides, width and height or percentage. You can also change the file type, resolution and quality. This feature, however, is sorely lacking compared to Lightroom, which offers advanced settings missing from Resolve, such as content credentials, watermarking, and post-processing.
Finally, another new dedicated feature in the Resolve Photo page is Capture Live View for camera tethering, which only supports Canon and Sony cameras at the moment. It lets you connect a camera to your PC via USB-C and control aperture, shutter speed, ISO and exposure compensation directly from the app. You can also view your images using Resolve’s scopes and change RAW settings such as white balance, temperature, shadows, highlights and more.
Conclude
DaVinci Resolve’s new Photo page can do most of what Lightroom does in terms of image adjustments, while adding powerful effects tools that its Adobe counterpart lacks. However, it is not yet a replacement for Photoshop, as it lacks the pixel-level organizing, exporting, compositing, and editing tools found in that application.
For now, the Photo page is ideal for filmmakers getting started with photo editing, as well as amateurs and power users familiar with Resolve’s great color grading tools. However, professional photographers may want to stick with Lightroom, as Resolve still lacks some advanced features, especially when it comes to organizing and exporting.
The new DaVinci Resolve Photo page has just launched and is set to improve significantly over time. If you’re hesitant, download the free version and see if it works for you. Many video editors made the same switch from Premiere and never looked back. Given the current grumbling about subscriptions from Adobe, I could see many people making the same move from Lightroom to Resolve.
This article was originally published on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/davinci-resolve-21-hands-on-a-viable-lightroom-alternative-for-casual-users-160520123.html?src=rss
