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Credit: Blackmagic Design
DaVinci Resolve has long had a place in our guide to the best video editing software. Looks like we’ll have to add it to our selection of the best photo editing software soon too.
The app’s developer, Blackmagic Design, has announced a bunch of news ahead of the NAB 2026 trade show in Las Vegas next week. There’s new hardware, but the biggest announcement for many people is the launch of DaVinci Resolve 21 in beta with a new photo editing workflow, including support for RAW images.
As Blackmagic CEO Grant Petty casually announces toward the end of the above presentation, DaVinci Resolve 21 is now available in public beta, and the update is huge. There are many new AI features for video editing, but the really radical change is the addition of a dedicated Photos page, allowing Hollywood-level color correction tools to be used to edit photos.
The DaVinci Resolve Photo page has its own tab between the Media and Cut pages. You can import photos in a range of common RAW formats and manage them in albums, which appear as timelines on the Color, Cut, and Edit pages.
On the photo page itself, you can reframe and crop images using the original source resolution and aspect ratio. The really powerful part is the integration with the color page, which takes full advantage of DaVinci’s node-based system to apply primary color corrections, curves, qualifiers and electric windows, just as you would on video.
Nodes can be added in series or parallel to create complex levels, and localized corrections can be applied to different parts of an image simultaneously. You can also use shared nodes to apply the same grade to an entire photo album at once to save time.
The new DaVinci Resolve Photo Page | Credit: Blackmagic Design
Support for Resolve FX and Open FX plug-in is available on the Photos page. You can apply LUTs, effects, images, transforms, and DCTLs, and you can also use DaVinci Resolve’s own AI tools, including AI Magic Mask to select people or objects and a new AI UltraSharpen to enhance low-resolution images.
A LightBox view provides a view of an entire album at once. It allows you to select an image, rate it, and see the results across the entire collection in real time.
There are even tethered shooting options. Camera controls allow images to be captured directly from Canon and Sony cameras directly into the software. You can adjust settings such as ISO, exposure, white balance, live view monitor and save shooting presets before shooting and save images directly to an album.
This update could shake up the workflows of many photographers and content creators, especially those who work with both photos and video. DaVinci Resolve Studio is already the leading color correction and effects program, and its one-time cost makes it a relatively affordable alternative to subscription-based software like Adobe’s Premiere. There’s even a free version that includes most of the basic features to get started.
Photo editing in DaVinci Resolution doesn’t have the same vast array of tools as Photoshop for masking, retouching, and compositing, but its image organization and color correction tools could make it a very attractive alternative to an app like Lightroom.
What else is new in DaVinci Resolve 21?
The DaVinci Resolve 21 Color Page | Credit: Blackmagic Design
In addition to the new photos page, DaVinci Resolve 21 introduces a bunch of new features for video editors. There are a ton of new AI-powered tools, the most surprising of which is the AI Face Age Transformer for aging and aging faces – yes, really; time to make one yourself. Here! You can enter the age of the subject and adjust the age compensation slider to add or remove wrinkles and facial fullness.
There is also an AI Face Reshaper for resizing facial features and AI Blemish Removal. AI IntelliSearch to search clips for people or objects, and a greatly simplified AI Speech Generator can convert written text into spoken voice, with the option to create custom voices from just a ten-second sample.
Other new AI tools include AI UltraSharpen, AI Motion Deblur and AI CineFocus for lens effects like bokeh shaping, and there’s a quick access render-in-place option for AI Magic Mask, which should help avoid the frustration of having to re-track the mask if the data is lost.
The public beta of DaVinci Resolve 21 can be downloaded for free from the Blackmagic Design website for existing customers who have purchased the full studio version of DaVinci Resolve.
