DaVinci Resolve is a great tool for video editing. It was launched by Blackmagic Design and has easily given a tough competition to major editing tools like Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro by Apple. Many editors choose DaVinci Resolve for their daily work because of it’s powerful features. But it is a complicated software and users need some time to get a hang of it. Luckily there are many plug-ins that can enhance the features and make editing quicker:
Free/Paid: Paid
Pricing: 7 day free trial, then $18-34/mo depending on plan
Video Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFgD81a-o1A
FireCut AI is an AI-powered tool that took the editing world by storm when they first launched their plug-in for Premiere Pro. FireCut AI has recently launched its DaVinci Resolve version as well. It is known to cut editing time significantly for users, as it uses AI to automate all the time-taking tasks like;
- Removing silences and awkward pauses
- Removing repetition
- Adding animated captions
- Adding automated zooms
- Adding chapters
- Adding relevant B-rolls & music
- And much more!
FireCut AI saves a lot of time for creators, providing them more time to focus on the creativity. It is a smart idea to benefit from AI in this day and age. You can try yourself with a free one week trial!
Free/Paid: Paid
Pricing: 7 day free trial, then $175/mo (billed monthly) or $150/mo (billed yearly)
Video Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF8wrYw6egA
If you are looking to elevate your content to the next level, Sapphire by BorisFX should be your go-to. Sapphire boasts a massive collection of over 270 effects and thousands of customizable presets. It offers visual effects such as flares, glow effects, transitions, and motion graphics. You can even combine multiple Sapphire effects and presets to create entirely new, custom effects and transitions. It gives you an incredible amount of creative control and flexibility
To fully experience the strength of visual effects in DaVinci Resolve, Sapphire plugin is a useful tool. It is loved by motion professional video editors, motion graphics artists, and compositors to create high-quality, organic effects that are often difficult or impossible to achieve manually with DaVinci Resolve.
Free/Paid: Paid
Pricing: 7 day free trial, then $199 one time payment
Video Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siRLIUQNaLc
Beauty Box by Digital Anarchy is another great tool that is used to beautify the looks of people in your videos. The core strength of the plugin is Automatic Skin and Face Detection. With a single click of the "Analyze Frame" button, Beauty Box automatically identifies skin tones in your footage and creates a precise mask. This eliminates the need for manual, frame-by-frame masking or rotoscoping, which can be an incredibly time-consuming process You can also use this tool to add makeup or simply retouch any look.
The plug-in is effective and very user-friendly. You can easily identify the subject and apply any filter to beautify the looks. It can be used by video editors, colorists, and post-production professionals to quickly and easily make on-screen talent look their best, especially in high-definition and 4K footage where skin imperfections can be highly visible.
Free/Paid: Paid
Pricing: 7 day free trial, then $149 one time payment
Video Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0LblnLqb2s
This plugin is popular within all the filmmakers. If you want to turn your raw digital footage into a cinematic masterpiece, FilmConvert Nirate is for you. Rather than simply applying a LUT (Lookup Table), it uses a sophisticated process of emulating the unique color science and grain structure of specific film stocks. It offers a variety of presets to choose from. You can adjust the grains and textures with just a click. You have full control over the strength and size of the grain, allowing you to dial in a subtle or more pronounced look.
FilmConvert Nitrate’s workflow is very user-friendly and designed for a specific purpose: film emulation. This can be faster and more intuitive for many users than doing everything manually. FilmConvert Nitrate is a powerful tool for filmmakers who want to achieve a high-quality, authentic film look without the complexity of a full-scale manual grade.
Free/Paid: Paid
Pricing: $89 one time payment
Video Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWueldhiSok
MotionVFX Channel clean not a tradtional plugin but rather a collection of motion graphics templates and assets for anyone who is looking to add graphics to their videos. It can be described as a comprehensive toolkit for visually branding a video channel with a clean, modern, and professional aesthetic. These are ready made graphics that can fit into almost any project. They can include overlays, backgrounds, subtitles and transitions etc.
MotionVFX Channel clean is an ideal product for content creators whho need to produce content quickly and want a professional look without a steep learning curve. It can also be beneficial for corporate video editors who want a clean, polished look for their explainer videos or social media content. Basically anyone on a tight deadline can use this plugin instead of building motion graphics from scratch in Fusion. These templates provide a fast and efficient way to create high-quality on-screen graphics.This plugin provides a simple and easy way of elevating your videos with versatile elements.
Free/Paid: Paid
Pricing: 7 day free trial, then $48 one time payment
Video Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0FK8IBJmkk
A lot of people use DaVinci Resolve for color grading. It takes a while to fix the colors and is often difficult for the beginners. False Color by timeinpixels is perfect for this task. It offers presets that can fix your videos quickly. It focuses on fixing the exposure, which is not an easy task at all. This allows you to quickly and accurately assess exposure without relying solely on your eyes or a waveform monitor.
False Color is a great way to save time and effort. It offers a wide range of options for fixing the colors, such as grey scales, and the best part is that they all look natural. While Resolve's other scopes (like the waveform and histogram) provide technical data about your image, false color offers a more intuitive and immediate way to read exposure. For many filmmakers and colorists, it's a go-to tool for a quick "gut check" on set and a final verification in post-production. It's a perfect example of a professional tool that simplifies a complex technical process.
Free/Paid: Paid
Pricing: $48 per month, $324 per annual or $765 permanent license
Video Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_dbUIUji3g
Mocha Pro is an amazing plugin for motion tracking. Fun fact: It has won the Academy Award for its innovative planar tracking technology. If you are into visual effects this is a great tool. It's highly accurate and can track objects through occlusions, reflections, and even on non-flat surfaces. By analyzing frames before and after an object appears, it can automatically generate a "clean plate" and remove the unwanted object with minimal user input. This is perfect for things like removing wires, rigs, or even unwanted people from a shot. You can also use it for screen replacement, adding signs to a building, or any other type of insert with realistic motion blur and distortion. It can also stabilize shaky camera footage.
It is a worthwhile investment for visual effects editors. Mocha Pro is considered an essential tool for high-end VFX work because it drastically reduces the time and effort required for tasks that would otherwise be tedious.
Free/Paid: Free
Pricing: $0
Video Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8_UT41KBac
Reactor is a platform where you can get free effects and plugins made by the community as We Suck Less. Reactor can be seen as the "App Store" for Fusion. It provides a centralized, user-friendly interface to browse, download, and install a huge collection of audio, 3D effects, transitions, blurs etc. The tools are created by users for users. This means you'll find a lot of highly practical and creative solutions that address real-world production challenges.
It is useful for people who want to make video editing easier without spending much. It's an essential tool for anyone who wants to expand the capabilities of Fusion and gain access to a massive library of community-created tools, without paying for third-party plugins.
Free/Paid: Free
Pricing: $0
Video Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-ptyHUNHHs
Place it by Soundly is another free gem which is helpful for editors who like to use sound effects. It's not a general-purpose EQ, compressor, or reverb, but a specialized tool that focuses on a very specific, and often challenging, task: making a sound, such as a voiceover or a sound effect, sound like it's coming from a specific speaker in a particular environment. You can decide the situations and place of sound while adding it to your videos so the sound effects blend in more naturally into your content.
"Place it" is a fantastic tool for video editors and sound designers, especially for dialogue and Foley. It simplifies the process of creating realistic sound—sound that has a clear source within the world of the film. For instance, you can use it to make a voiceover sound like it's coming from a radio in a car, or to make a sound effect, like a gunshot, sound like it's echoing from a distant hallway. If you are not an audio engineer and still want high quality sound-effects, this is a great free tool for you!
Free/Paid: Free
Pricing: $0
Video Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOpyo4gJ_1Q&t=19s
Highlight Window is a part of the template pack that Jake Whipp offers for DaVinci Resolve. This helps to highlight a part of your video. It gives you different options to highlight through animations, scale and blur. You can easily change the shape (often a rectangle or circle) and size of the highlight area. Highlight window makes highlighting much easier.
This template can be very useful particularly for tutorials as it can help in drawing a viewer's attention to a particular button, menu, or area of the screen. Product Demos can also be made using Highlight Window for emphasizing a specific feature of a product in a video. Highlighting key pieces of information or data point can also be done easily for educational content. Jake Wipp's "Highlight Window" is a powerful, user-friendly tool that creates efficient and professional-looking effects easily.
Conclusion:
DaVinci Resolve is a powerful video editing tool. There are many features which are useful for video editors in their everyday workflow but it can be hard to use and might require several hours. These plugins can be a great addition for any type of video editor. They can make video editing easier and efficient. So choose your plugin according to your workflow and start editing!