Hi everyone — just wanted to share an updated take (2025 version) on a DaVinci Resolve beginner’s tutorial I followed after switching from Adobe Premiere.
I came into Resolve as a complete newcomer, having used Premiere for years, so this video was a huge help.
Some thoughts from my experience:
- The tutorial does a solid job of laying the foundation: interface, key tools, workflow basics.
- As someone used to Premiere, there were a few “aha” moments — new shortcuts, color tab layout, how nodes work — but the pace was manageable.
- I found it especially helpful to pause and try immediately what was shown, which reinforced learning.
If any of you are also making the jump from Premiere (or thinking about it), I’d be happy to compare notes or share tips I’ve picked up so far.
Would love to hear from others who’ve made the switch — any favorite workflows, challenges, or other tutorials you’d recommend?
Thanks — and happy editing!
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Cyrus Sales We are in process of evaluating DaVinci Resolve Studio for our editing needs at Diamond Shadow Productions and Stage And Screen Innovations. Truth is though that most people we deal with in our post flow deal with Adobe, and that is a very big issue. After working with Adobe since around the year 2000... it's also what I am familiar with and frankly the last few years have made it a fantastic, solid platform with tons of industry and after-market support. DaVinci simply doesn't have that support in the industry or in the after-market.
Having said that, we are using it on our series Uncharted Freedom and our feature Dark Veil. I find the work flow and node structure pretty easy to navigate though it's FAR from intuitive. The latest DaVinci versions have "features" which to my mind are actually bugs. The fact that we follow best practices by assuming that the app does NOT have our back (it doesn't) has saved our project a couple of times. Davinci so far has a worse track record in preserving projects when it crashes, and it's less stable than Premiere and After Effects at this time. Still - we're going to complete at least these projects before making a decision to move to it permanently. You do get used to the layout and approach quickly and it feels quite organized. And of course it works with Blackmagic Raw natively, and we like Blackmagic raw...
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I've been using Davinci since about 2018 right before we bought the Pocket 4K camera and I can't believe how great this software has become and I've never looked back. I've used Premiere Pro and After Effects and both are great software, I've used Avid, Edius and others, but honestly there's no other software I'd rather use than Davinci.
I had no problem switching because the basics are the same everywhere and the more advanced stuff you always have to relearn anyway. So the learning curve is steep but I actually think it's worth it.
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Shadow Dragu-Mihai, Esq., Ipg thank you for sharing your experience with using Adobe and evaluating DaVinci. I'm still new to the software so I personally haven't had some of the same experiences (system crashing, preserving projects, etc) although if there's one thing this industry can guarantee, it's only a matter of time. I will agree Adobe has a solid platform with tons of industry support. Similar to Avid ProTools in the audio world.
I'm using it for my personal project as of now and continuing client projects in Adobe until I feel it makes sense to move completely over and I become more efficient with the workflow for turnaround time. I just started using blackmagic as well (the app for personal projects) so it makes sense to use it for that too.
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Vital Butinar thanks for sharing your insight and experience as well. How do you like the pocket 4k and what are you moving away from camera wise (curious)? I use Sony and Adobe but recently started using the DaVinci app for iPhone and DaVinci software to edit.
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Cyrus Sales well the Pocket 4K was originally just bought for like small projects where there's no budget type things. Music videos, shorts, etc. But we soon started using it a lot, these days we use everything from the Pocket 4K, Red to the Alexa Mini depending on the budget. Before that I used a Nikon DSLR or whatever else we had, from Sony FS7 to Canon C200. But once we started shooting with the Pocked 4K in BRAW we actually never turned back so from then on it was either something that shot raw or something that can get hooked to an external recorder. Like I said for paid project all the gear always gets rented, bit for our own stuff we use whatever we have. Right now we're doing a no budget feature and we're using the Pocket 4K. Personally I love BM cameras and my partner who's the DP loves her Pocket 4k. As for Davinci I love working in it, I can work with most NLEs but prefer it. The only thing that I still like better than Davinci Fusion is After Effects. I mean I can use Fusion and I love how I can just copy and paste nodes from one clip to another. I don't mind the node based workflow, but somehow I really got used to the layered base workflow.
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This was such a refreshing read, Cyrus — the way you described those “aha” moments felt like watching creativity click frame by frame. I love how you broke it down without losing the wonder. It’s rare to see someone share both the tech and the heart behind the process. Keep these posts coming — they remind the rest of us why we fell in love with storytelling in the first place.
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Charmane Wedderburn I'm still having some aha moments if I'm being honest. Thanks for the insight and feedback, love to see people are getting value from the different post.