What's NEW in DaVinci Resolve 18.6

DaVinci Resolve 18.6 is mostly a minor update, still providing new handy features and additional convenience to your workflow.

Cloud Storage

Blackmagic design has previously added the ability to upload your projects to the cloud, so you can access them from anywhere and grant access to other users. Cloud storage provides you with a secure backup of your media, multi-user worldwide collaboration and a single user access to your files.

To connect your media with the storage, you just need a free Blackmagic cloud account. You can log into cloud.blackmagicdesign.com to access this storage and additionally purchase project libraries or additional storage.

The space available for free is 2GB of storage, after that you can increase the storage to the 500GB for $15 a month. This option will also allow you to add up to 1 project library, 30 members and 20 presentations.

Favorite Keywords

Now, we can sign the favorite keywords to clips and markers.

Now you can mark specific sections of your clips as favorite, so it would be easier to start editing with the specific footage selected.

Go to Preferences>User>Editing and make sure you have checked the Automatic smart bins for keywords option.

To apply a keyword, select In and Out points of your footage, right-click in the middle and select Convert this In and Out to Duration Marker.

If we open the marker, we’ll get the menu where we can set the name, color and keyword for this marker.

To get through your keywords, just go to Workspace>Keyword Manager and write down the keywords you want to use. After that, you can locate all marked footage via your smart bins.

Shortcuts can now be assigned for track header context menu actions to add, delete, move, change color, and link tracks. Tracks can be selected in the Track index, or the Edit and Fairlight timelines.

For example, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to add a new Audio Track in the Edit page by navigating to Commands>Edit Timeline>Track Controls>Add Track>Audio in the Keyboard Customization window.

Export Power Bins

Extremely useful feature our clients have been asking about - when will it be possible to export power bins? Now this feature is finally available in DaVinci Resolve 18.6.

To export the bin, right-click on it and choose the Export Bin option. As for now, what’s exported is just the links to the media, not the media - but still, it’s much better than nothing!

You can export bins as .drb files, just like normal bins. Power Bins are hidden by default and can be turned on by clicking on the Media Pool option menu and selecting Show Power Bins.

Import/Export Render Presets

New feature that will definitely be used by editors - now you can import and export your render presets, so you can share them to another device.

Presets has been a great way to save your time, since you don’t have to set all render properties anew again and again. Even better to be able to export and import your saved presets to other machines now!

To export your preset, just go to your render settings and click on the three dots. Here, select Import Preset.

To export your preset, go to your render settings and click on three dots the same way. Here, select the option to Save as a New Preset, give it a name and click OK. Now, click on the three dots again, and go to your Preset Name>Export Preset.

Outer Text Stroke

Now we have the ability to add the outer text stroke in titles and subtitles.

To add an outer stroke, drag a Text+ to your timeline and go to Properties>Appearance and select the second option to enable the outer stroke.

Here you can increase or decrease the Thickness, use checkboxes to Adapt to Perspective or use Outside Only.

To add an outer stroke to the Text, drag it to your timeline and go down to Stroke menu - here you can set the Size, Color and use the stroke Outside Only.

Transcription Status Column

Another little improvement that Blackmagic design has added to DaVinci is an ability to see if your video was transcribed - previously there were no chance to check that from the media pool.

To add a column, open your media pool, right-click on it and enable the Transcription Status Column.

Now, you’ll be able to see if your clip has been already transcribed straight from the media pool.

Add Timeline to Render

Additionally, you can send the whole timeline to render directly from the Edit page.

To add a timeline to the render, go to the Edit page>Smart Bins>Timelines and right-click on the Project Timeline. Here, go to the Timelines>Add to Render Queue Using>Your Preset.

Now, our timeline is added to the Render Queue on the Deliver page. You can do the same action to add not just one, but multiple timelines.

GIFs support

Now we additionally have GIFs support - we could generate them in DaVinci Resolve 18.5 but now we can also import them. To import a GIF, just drag it to your Media Pool. As for now, GIFs do not loop, so you have to duplicate them in order for them to look like GIFs.

To Sum Up

Very useful update in which we once again can see that Blackmagic design listens to it’s users. Now it would be quicker to edit and render our footage, and we can finally export/import our render presets!

If you’re interested in more DaVinci Resolve guides, check our blog - here we highlight how to use DaVinci Resolve, it’s best features fro free and studio version and much more!