DaVinci Resolve Color Grading Basics

Move to the Color page to correct and enhance the look of your footage using DaVinci’s professional grading tools. Here’s how to do it in DaVinci Resolve on macOS, step by step — part of the free DaVinci Resolve beginner curriculum.

Lesson 5 of the DaVinci Resolve curriculum. Before this: Trimming and Transitions. Next up: Audio and Fairlight.

What you’ll do

• Navigate to the Color page (Shift+5) — notice the entire interface changes
• Identify the five main regions of the Color page: Viewer (top-center), Gallery (upper-left), Nodes panel (upper-right), Color Wheels palette (bottom-center), and Mini Timeline (very bottom strip)
• Understand the Nodes panel: each node is one processing step in the color pipeline. The first node is selected by default (highlighted in blue).
• Add a serial node with Option+S — use serial nodes for sequential grade operations
• Use the Color Wheels (Lift/Gamma/Gain/Offset) for primary correction: Lift adjusts shadows, Gamma adjusts midtones, Gain adjusts highlights, Offset shifts all tonal ranges uniformly
• Open the Scopes window with Command+M; use the Waveform scope to check luminance levels (0–100 IRE is the broadcast-legal range)
• Use the Parade scope to check color balance — match the shapes of R, G, and B channels to neutralize a color cast
• Grab a still to save your grade in the Gallery (Command+G), then apply it to another clip by right-clicking the still > Apply Grade
• Navigate between clips in the Mini Timeline (the strip at the very bottom of the Color page)
• Understand the correct node order: primary correction on Node 1, secondary corrections on Node 2, creative look on the last node

Do it hands-free with Skilly

Reading steps is one thing; doing them while the menus are in front of you is another. Skilly is a voice-first tutor for macOS: you ask out loud — “where’s the color panel?” — and it answers while moving your cursor to the exact button, watching your actual DaVinci Resolve window. It’s the same DaVinci Resolve curriculum these lessons come from, taught live instead of read. Free to start.

Keep going

This is one stage of the full DaVinci Resolve beginner curriculum. Previous: Trimming and Transitions. Continue with Audio and Fairlight.