Edit Like a Goddess for FREE | DaVinci Resolve Beginner Tutorial

https://youtu.be/W-0J9Iubfms?si=eryV3SNyiR5EoklW

Learn how to edit videos for free in DaVinci Resolve, without needing to understand every terrifying button on the screen.

This is a beginner-friendly DaVinci Resolve crash course for the girls, creators, vloggers, small business owners, and anyone who wants their videos to look cleaner, smoother and more cinematic without paying for expensive editing software.

DaVinci Resolve can look very intense when you first open it, but I promise you only need a few key tools to start making good videos. In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through the basics from scratch: importing your footage, cutting clips together, adding text, making your edit look better, and exporting your finished video for YouTube, TikTok, Instagram Reels or Shorts.

I’m Sara, a video editor and content creator, and I use DaVinci Resolve for both client work and my own videos. This is the editing tutorial I wish existed when I first started: simple, practical, non-overwhelming, and not explained by a man in a black hoodie talking about codecs.

✨ In this video:
0:00 - Intro (Why Davinci)
0:45 - Media Page
2:14 - Cut Page
2:55 - Edit Page
12:52 - Plug Ins
15:23 - Fusion Page
15:40 - Colour Page
17:90 - Export Page
18:06 - Conclusion

Plug-ins:
https://videoeditorstudio.com
https://www.mralextech.com/magiczoomfree - Magic Zoom
https://www.audiopluginsforfree.com/place-it/ - Place it (Audio)

DaVinci Resolve is free, powerful, and way less scary once you know where to start!

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#DaVinciResolve #DaVinciResolveTutorial #VideoEditing #BeginnerTutorial #ContentCreator

0:00 · Everyone's trying to get into content these days. And one of the hardest parts of making content is editing. I'm a professional video editor and I work with people like the New York Knicks.

0:08 · I'm going to be showing the girlies how to use Da Vinci Resolve so I can save you money. You don't need to be spending 20 a month on Cap Cup. Couple of things.

0:16 · There is a free version of Dinci Resolve and then there's Dav Vinci Resolve Studio. Dinci Resolve is free, completely free. You just have to download it to your computer and your computer has to be vaguely good to be able to run it cuz it does take up quite a lot of power. In this video, I'm going to show you how to edit your first video in Da Vinci Resolve. I'm going to go through every single page, and I'm going to go through what each button means, what my favorite effects are. Also, I'm going to do a section where I show you some of my favorite free plugins that you can download, which makes everything so much easier.

0:43 · Okay, ready? Let's go. So, we've opened up our Dinci Resolve and now we have, as you can see, we have different sections on these ones below. First point, if yours doesn't have the photo section, that's completely fine. This is the 21.

0:55 · This is the beta version, so they're testing out this whole new photo thing.

0:58 · Secondly, what do each of them do and are they terrifying? Yes. No, they're not. To be honest with you, I mainly just use the edit page, the fusion page, and the color page. I just do the sound in the edit page. And then in media, this is where you organize all your clips. So, firstly, we're going to look around each of the different pages. So, here we have bins and mask. All this is doing is trying to help you put your stuff into folders because when you work for different projects, you have to keep on tracking your stuff otherwise everything goes pear-shaped.

1:22 · All it does is if you're doing a vlog for example, you could do here you can do rename your bin and you can just do me talking to camera. You then would find all your clips. Me talking to the camera. Just click change. That's fine. And then that's me talking to the camera. Then you can also maybe do another one. If you click back to master, you can do new Ben and you could do B-roll. And that is any of the footage that is basically you moving your camera around. Maybe it's you laughing. Maybe it's you cheersing with your mates. Maybe it's you doing whatever. That's all the footage that isn't you just talking to the camera.

1:55 · Then you can also potentially have one for sound effects. So I get all my sound effects from Epidemic Sounds. So then we also have audio, all my songs and all my music. We are doing a basic starter pack, right? And that's kind of all you need. It's just to help your life get a bit easier. We're going to skip the photo page because that's in the beta version. This is the cut version. So what this does is it's a really quick way of basically meaning that you can cut your footage. I'm going to show you my first hack. We're going to change one of your custom keyboard preferences. Why are we doing this?

2:25 · It means you can edit really, really quickly. So, there is something called a playhead. And your playhead is this little red thing right here. So, what you're going to do is you're going to click Dinci Resolve.

2:35 · You're going to click keyboard customization. And you are going to go to the letter Q.

2:41 · As you see here on my left, it says Q, start to play head. Yours won't look like that. You want to look up trim ripple start to play head. So mine has two on it. So you're going to put a queue onto that one. So this is the cut page. That's kind of all you need. Cut and paste your images in different places. Images, videos. Next, we're going to head to the edit page. This is where most of your stuff will happen.

3:01 · This is if you use Cap Cut, this will be your bread and butter. So here we have the mouse button. This will basically mean that you can move anything. This as a shortcut is the letter A. You then have this trim button here. This is if you split this, you can now move this in and out. So you can move what you're doing without having to move your whole timeline around and it get really confusing. You can also extend your clip. So if you click here and you move it down so you can just see one of the little arrows, you can then pull your clip across and pull it back. Then we have the split tool. This means you can raise it anywhere.

3:31 · They're the main cutting tools. We also then have this.

3:36 · If I click this video here and then I click this button, which is insert clip or F9, then you can pop it straight in there. Bob's your uncle. You also can put it on top. So I can put it right on top of that clip. So it just overwrites it completely. Or the other option is I can switch them out. So it will switch out that clip for this clip. We then have our markers. These are I would say you're not really going to need them there just if you want to kind of remember a spot in the whole thing. Then you have the full extent zoom. This shows your entire timeline. Then you have this section which is I don't know what it's called. This is where you can see part of your timeline.

4:07 · If you're using a Mac, you can just use the trackpad to move back and forward.

4:11 · Again, if you want to zoom in and out of your timeline, you can press option and then the move in and out button or you can just use this plus or minus on the side. Then also have your volume obviously. You then have here on the left you have the timeline view options.

4:24 · So you can choose exactly how you see them. You don't need that. Thirdly, you have key frames. These are all your key frames down here. Again, you don't need that right now. Chill out. You're a beginner. We're all beginners here. And then here we have um if you want to record a voice over, I don't recommend doing this because it sucks. I'd recommend doing a voice over with a mic on your DJI or on a phone, whatever, whatever you fancy. That's the first part of the edit page. You see, we have two different screens here. Why?

4:50 · If I double click on my video in my media pool, which is what this section is called, then you are going to see me looking very stoic. I can choose how much this video that I put in. Only put that section in if I fancy it. And I can put it over the top as a B-roll. So, as I'm talking, then it comes in with me looking at a envelope very happily. That's why you have two bits. If you don't want two bits, just click this tiny little button at the top here, and that will make everything just go onto one so you can see everything a bit better.

5:23 · Now, at the top here, we have the media pool. The media pool will basically show all the different clips that you have.

5:29 · This is the effects tool. This will become your best friend if you decide to use Dinci Resolve. In here, we have any of the plugins that you download. At the end there'll be a list of all my plugins that are free which will make your life so much easier. So you have all of these transitions on your Da Vinci Resolve.

5:42 · You'll see they'll have different titles. So you have like the really obvious ones which is like an arrow iris like you potentially could use that if you want something. You also have push.

5:52 · You also have your way of making a if you want to make a whip pan which is where the camera goes. You can use the push and put motion blur on it. You have all of these wipe ones. You have the X wipe. You have Fusion. As you see here, there are titles. I have a lot more titles than you can probably see. That's because I download them in something called plugins. What is a plug-in? A plug-in is something you can download from the internet. Everyone's made their own Fusion compositions, which basically means that you can just take that composition and just pop some text into it and it looks really cool.

6:22 · A good example of this is I have a counter, which if I put here, I can then go to the inspector and I can change all these numbers. So, I can go from zero to a th00and. I can take this text out and then I just have a counter that has exactly the numbers that I want on it because someone's already made that. This was all downloaded for free and I can show you at the end all of my favorite ones, but that's why I probably have more than you in this effects tab.

6:51 · We also have So, we have all our video transitions, our audio transitions, titles, generators. You don't need generators. Effects. So, if you fancy putting like a name, if you want to put a paper edge on, you also have the resolve stuff. So, I can go through all of these as well. If you ever want to put motion blur on something, uh filters, so if you want to ever blur anything or if you want to put like a camera shake, transitions, audio, again, I don't really use the audio ones very much. Um, you really don't need them as you're starting out.

7:20 · That's the effects tab in an instant.

7:22 · Index, don't need it. Never used it.

7:25 · sound library. Again, you can download a sound library and you can put stuff in.

7:30 · Instead, what I do is I use Epidemic Sounds. What is Epidemic Sounds, I hear you ask? It is a website which basically has a whole list of royalty-free sound effects and music that you can use and download. It's roughly £15 a month, I think. For me, as someone who does YouTube, is trying to do YouTube full-time, who does Tik Tok and Instagram, and I also do client work, it is genuinely one of the most helpful things because the music doesn't suck.

7:55 · Every other royaltyfree music you find sucks. And I will tell you that for free, whereas this is a great way of finding multiple different tracks. It's actually good. And I don't back things like I pay for it. I pay £15 a month for it. And I would always recommend it. That's where I also get all my sound effects. So, I get all my wishes, my wishes, my swishes, all of that kind of thing, and I put them into a folder. So, then as soon as I go into my media pool, I can just drop that folder of sound effects into my timeline. If you would like to join Epidemic Sounds, you can use my code below. I don't know if you get anything.

8:26 · I I just get something, which is I potentially might get a free subscription in like seven months time.

8:32 · So, I'm literally not getting anything out of this. I just really like it and I think that everyone should use it. And then we have key. You don't need the key frames bit yet, guys. We're going slowly. Okay, next you have quick export. Ignore that for the moment.

8:44 · Mixer is to do with sound. Again, you don't need that. Metadata, don't need it. Inspector is where your whole life is going to be. So, this is the inspector. The inspector is basically what is going to help you do absolutely anything in Da Vinci Resolve. So, what the inspector does, you can zoom. So, if you click this button and then the way it works, if you click the number and then you drag to the right or drag to the left, you'll be able to actually affect the digit. You can't just do it on your laptop sadly.

9:07 · But if you double click the zoom, so if I've zoomed in to 1.7 1.75, I then double click the zoom, it will just go, the zoom will reset back to normal. If you ever think it all looks crazy and you want to delete everything, click this little button here and the whole thing will completely change. Position is where it is. So X is left and right, Y is up and down.

9:28 · Rotation, anchor point, you don't need to know about. Pitch is basically up and down like this, which is quite good if you ever want to get a cheap 3D effect and you can't be asked to go into Fusion.

9:39 · Your is like this. Obviously, flip flip.

9:43 · Cropping is I can crop left and I can crop right. Softness will only work with cropping. So, for example, that softness composite is opacity. So, I can basically change how the opacity of my image. I can also do different versions.

9:57 · So, for example, I can do hard light, hue, lighten, lighter color, linear burn, all that jazz. Speed change is how quickly this will go. But I'm going to teach you a quicker and easier way of doing speed. So, don't worry about that whatsoever. That's more important for like audio. We then have stabilization. So, one of the great things about Da Vinci is Da Vinci has stabilization built in for free, whereas Cap Cut doesn't. So, basically, if my footage was really I could then stabilize it. It will analyze the clip and it will stabilize it. And usually it's pretty good.

10:26 · The other thing you can do if you really want it to stabilize a bit more is you can click the camera lock and it's basically like you're putting the camera on a tripod.

10:34 · This isn't as good because it wiggles quite a lot, but you get the idea. You then have also lens correction. This basically will kind of distort it. So if you ever want like a fisheye look, rettime and scaling. This means if you're doing slow-mo stuff, you can put it on optimal flow, which basically means um that it just looks smoother and it looks more like it's gliding through the water rather than like we now have audios. the audio. We obviously have volume. That's how loud or quiet the clip is. We have pans. That's what side of the speaker it comes out of. So, if you want one speaker to have one piece of music and one speaker to have another, you can do that. AI voice isolation.

11:06 · I don't know if this in the free version, but it basically isolates the voice. I don't really use these.

11:11 · Again, as I say, I don't really do anything to my audio. I'm then going to show you what happens if I put an effect on. So, if I put a box blur on. So, this is going to blur my whole thing. So, as soon as I put one on, it's going to go under open effects. This is it toggled on and off. I can then do the strength of both the channel adjustment. So if I want it more red, if I want it more green, blue, whatever. I've also got the vertical one. And then I also have the advanced controls. I can make it more iterations, I can make it less. That's a really good example in terms of effect.

11:36 · Then we also have transitions. I then click a transition, which is this cross transition. But if I go to this transition, I've got cross iris. I can then change the duration of it or I can just click here.

11:48 · I also have the angle. So I can change the vibe. I also have the border can make it like that. Everything from the transitions then goes onto your inspector and it's a bit of trial and error to kind of work out what you like.

11:59 · What's great about this is you have so much control with this. You can really finesse that transition image and file you don't really need. This is how you do retiming. So if you ever want to change the speed of a clip really quickly on a Mac, you're going to click command R. This is going to bring up this. Don't freak out. You're going to go up to here. Um oh, it's kind of working. You're going to hit the end of it and then you're either going to move it. It's going to have a number here.

12:21 · This is the speed of your clip. So, say if I go if I go faster, it's going to be 160. If I go slower, it's going to be 59. That's how slow your clip's going to be. As you can see, I'm moving in slow motion. If I then go back and I go to rettime and scaling, and I go to rettime processes, optical flow, it's a lot smoother. I literally look like a bit like I'm floating through water. So, that is a really basic quick zoom through way of doing the edit page.

12:49 · So now I'm going to show you some of my favorite plugins that you can get.

12:53 · Normally when you move things around in the edit page, you use something called key frames. This little button here is a key frame. And what it does is it puts it tells Da Vinci Resolve that you want to go to this exact point at this time.

13:04 · Think of it as a graph. So for example, if you want the screen to go from one side to another, you would do position.

13:10 · If I key frame this position and then move a few frames, click it again.

13:17 · move five frames, move over this side, and it then would look like this. You have that glide. This is kind of a pain in the ass. So, why don't we get someone to do it for us? So, this is where plugins come in. As you can see here in my effects tab, I have quite a few free plugins from different people. I'll link them all in the description, all the ones that I use. So, I have this free starter pack, which is free. This has auto animation.

13:46 · So what this does is before when the clip starts it will give me an animation. So I can either zoom in, I can pan left, which is actually going that way. I can pan right, I can slide down, I can slide up. And it's a really quick way of just adding in a animation, especially if you're doing an overlay like this. Another one of my favorites to make something look really cool is this phone effect. So what this does, it's not going to work great because this video is landscape. Click this phone effect and I go to file aspect ratio. I zoom that in. I am now in a phone.

14:18 · I can then take away this opacity.

14:23 · So now I'm in a phone and I can move this phone around. It's a really cool way of adding something a bit extra to your videos. The other one is the magic zoom. That's doing exactly what we just did and it zooms in very quickly. You can move the X, you can move everything around. He's got a whole video on how to do that. He has quite a few really great ones that are free and I think a couple of paid ones as well, but they're really good. The other one for audio is you can use something called place it. So what it does is if I add this on here, I can then put my audio through a speaker. I can put it through a wall.

14:54 · I can put it in different spaces. It, for example, if you're doing a voice over and you need it to sound like you're outside, but you're not, you can put yourself outside and you can put yourself in a different position from the camera. Then I also have all of these different titles. I can also get all of these backgrounds or I can get a prism wave this one. So these are all the stinger transitions. These are pretty good if you do motion graphics, but you can get your logo to go across the screen. If you want any social media ones, this content creator pack's quite good. Let us now talk about what we all want to talk about and that is fusion.

15:28 · Fusion when you go on it is terrifying.

15:31 · However, I can do a whole video on fusion which will kind of explain the whole process. If you ever want to learn fusion, I would go and watch Casey Ferris on uh YouTube. He completely taught me everything I knew about Fusion. So, I would really recommend him. I can do a separate video on it.

15:46 · Just don't get scared of it cuz it's actually incredibly helpful, especially if you have the free version. You can basically do anything you want on it.

15:51 · You then have the color page. Again, don't freak out. I know it looks really scary, but all you really need here is if you're taking your footage on a DJI or anything like that, you can film on something called DLOG, which is actually Dlog M on the Pocket 3. But you can then literally correct your footage on Da Vinci very quickly using something called the LUT, which is given to you by DJI. You can download it off their website. If you just pop that on there, this is my footage before. This is my footage after. And then I can change on here. All you really need to know about this is if you want it to make it lighter and darker, you go to offset, offset, bring it down.

16:22 · That's going to bring all the light down from the video.

16:25 · Gain is just the highlights. It's anything that's really bright. Gamma is like the mid tones, which if you don't know what mid tones are, they're basically like kind of your skin, like anything kind of in the middle. And then lift is the shadows. So lift is basically anything that's dark. So if I bring this down, you can see that's kind of deepened my image quite a lot. And then temperature. So temperature, I can make it really orange and I can make it really blue. And all you need to do is every time you do something, you go to node, add node, add serial, and you can just do whatever you want. There are so many color grading tutorials. Again, you don't need to go that ind depth in color grading.

16:57 · If you want a color grading tutorial, don't ask me. I'm I'm so bad at it, but there are some great ones out there. Or the other thing you can do is you can buy lots from people. Um, I never really recommend buying a lot. I recommend buying a power grade because a power grade you can edit a lot more easily, whereas a lot you're stuck. You're stuck with exactly what it's given you. Fair Light is audio. I don't know how to use this page, don't worry. Then we have deliver. So deliver is the export page.

17:21 · So as you see, we have my clip here. You have the file name. Um so if I call this YouTube um example, then I just basically put it somewhere so I can browse and put it somewhere. Finalize videos. I then have all these options.

17:33 · Don't stress. All you need format QuickTime codec 8.264. I'm doing this for social media, by the way. You want your time resolution depending on what you want. everyone kind of changes it. So, you can restrict it, which can make it really, really nice, like in quality wise.

17:49 · And then the one thing you do need to know is if you add subtitles, which I can always show you in a different video, you're going to click export subtitles. Instead of having it in a separate file, burn it into the video.

17:59 · You're going to go add to render Q, and then you're just going to click render all. It will render. All a render is is downloading it to your computer.

18:06 · Basically, this is basically all you need as a really quick breakdown of what Da Vinci Resolve is. My aim from this video is to make it less scary. It's a great software. I think it's arguably one of the best softwares. As I said before, it is free or you can buy the studio version. So, it typically cost £248, but it's a one-off payment, so you'll never have to pay it again. And that's my biggest thing because if you're paying for Cap Cut, which is £20 a month, within a year, you're you've already bought Da Vinci. Does that make sense?

18:34 · Um, I also would say that if you're deciding to take video editing seriously, if you're looking at how to edit, if you want to ever do this in a professional setting, I really recommend learning the next level up from Cap Cut. So, it's taken a bit more seriously. Da Vinci Resolve and Adobe, all of those. I always just recommend your next stop being Da Vinci Resolve. And again, if you want anything more in-depth, I can show you how I do some of my really cool stuff.

19:02 · So, I wanted to make this video to make it less scary and just hopefully you download it today and give it a