DaVinci Resolve 21 Final Release Now Available – New Photo Page, Expanded AI Toolset, Krokodove in Fusion, and Wide RAW Support

Editing Software

by Johnnie BehiriJune 4^th, 2026

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Blackmagic Design has released the full version of DaVinci Resolve 21, the most significant expansion of the platform’s scope in years, headlined by an entirely new Photo page that brings Resolve’s node-based grading engine to still images. The release also includes keyframing upgrades across the Cut and Edit pages, over 100 new Fusion motion graphics tools via Krokodove, broad new RAW decode support, including Canon CR3 and Sony Burano V3, and a long list of editorial, color, and Fairlight refinements.

We covered Resolve 21 in depth when Blackmagic Design first unveiled it ahead of NAB 2026, and we went hands-on at the company’s booth shortly after to see the Photo page, IntelliSearch, and CineFocus running on the show floor. The version then moved through a public beta cycle, and with that now behind it, version 21 arrives as a finished release. The feature set is broad enough that most users will find something relevant to their workflow regardless of which page they spend their day in.

One practical note before upgrading: Blackmagic Design has kept the Resolve 21 project libraries compatible with version 20.3.2, but any individual project created or opened in 21 can no longer be opened in 20.3.2. The company recommends a full project library backup, plus individual project backups, before you start opening projects in the new version. That is standard advice with any major Resolve jump, but it carries real weight here, given how much has changed under the hood.

A dedicated Photo page brings grading to stills

The headline addition is the new Photo page, which integrates still image editing directly into Resolve rather than treating it as a bolted-on extra. It ships with an image library that supports tagging, favorites, ratings, and album collections, and albums let you build, manage, and tweak photos at source resolution. There is native RAW support for major camera formats, the ability to import media from Apple Photos on macOS, and support for importing Lightroom Catalog files straight into the media pool.

Crucially for colorists already living in Resolve, the Photo page connects to the same toolset they know. It supports the DaVinci color control surfaces and grading panels, plus Looks, LUTs, ResolveFX, and OpenFX applied to images, and it handles GPU-accelerated batch exports and conversions. Because it ties into Resolve’s multi-user collaboration and Blackmagic Cloud syncing, the still workflow slots into the same project structure as the rest of a facility’s work rather than sitting off to the side.

Keyframing and editorial gains on the Cut and Edit pages

The Cut and Edit pages receive one of the deepest rounds of updates in this release, starting with a substantially reworked keyframing system. Retiming now uses 4-point bezier controls, you can keyframe and add curves across multiple selected clips at once, and there are ease options alongside loop, ping pong, reverse, and stretch behaviors. Keyframing now extends to Fusion effects, generators, and text in addition to edit effects, and subframe support has been added for both keyframes and markers.

Text and graphics handling also takes a notable step forward. There is now native support for OGraf HTML graphics and Lottie animations, a new font browser window for text and subtitle elements, optional font previewing during selection, spell checking across all text elements, and emoji and color font support for Text+ and MultiText. A new ResolveFX Picture in Picture effect joins a ResolveFX Video Collage that now offers separate tile fill and border controls.

Multicam workflows get meaningful attention too. Angle previews now appear in clean feed and video outputs, multicams can include all audio tracks for each angle, and they can use full clip extents both on creation and during sync. The release also folds in a long list of smaller but useful editorial touches, including Affinity .af file support with group and individual layer control, timecode options for frames, subframes, or audio samples, the ability to view remote color versions in the source viewer, and paste and remove attributes that retain image position under a crop. Replay tooling expands as well, with a control to limit the view to the last five minutes of recorded media, timeline selection from the search dial, independent start and end stingers, and a title palette holding up to six favorite titles.

Media pool, metadata, and color refinements

On the organizational side, the media pool now supports tabbed layouts, and thumbnail, list, and metadata views can be set per bin. Clips gain star rating support, the Cut page now supports smart bin views, and there is an automatic smart bin and clip filter for offline clips. You can export media bin thumbnails as a PDF, define custom metadata for smart bins, filters, data burn, and naming tags, customize project poster frames, and surface input colorspace and gamma directly in the metadata view.

The Color page extends grade flexibility in several directions. Clip groups now support grade versions, node graphs can be viewed as a layer list, and node stacks now support up to eight layers. There are customizable HDR and nit scope ranges, ACES AMF improvements with transform names and custom folders, Adobe RGB colorspace and gamma support, and OpenFX 1.5 color management APIs for colorspace-aware effects. Advanced panel controls now cover 2.39 and 2.4 safe area aspect ratios, multi-user projects can bypass color management on the Color page, and pasting tracking data between power windows now retains the original shape.

Fusion gains Krokodove and a deeper 3D pipeline

Fusion is where the motion graphics expansion lands hardest. The page now includes support for the Krokodove effects library, adding over 100 new motion graphics effects and tools, and there is a new Macro Editor with an inspector view and the ability to publish macros to edit effects. Fusion animation can now be creatively driven by Fairlight audio, and the page picks up the same native OGraf HTML and Lottie support found on the edit side, along with spell checking and the emoji and color font improvements for Text+ and MultiText.

The 3D side advances as well, with support for USD SDK 25.11 and the Hydra 2.0 API for the Storm renderer, USD support for 3D matte objects and textures, a USD Texture Projector and Catcher, and global in-out controls for the USD Loader. Other additions include native creation of Relief Maps, the ability to change inspector properties across multi-tool selections, user-defined metadata variables in paths, expressions, and scripts, and a Lens Distort tool that now offers checkerboard calibration and GPU acceleration. On the Fairlight page, folder tracks let a group of tracks be folded down or expanded, and there is go-to-mouse-pointer support using the C key.

Codecs, RAW support, and I/O

For anyone wrangling mixed media, the codec list in version 21 is broad. New RAW decode support arrives for Canon CR3, Panasonic LUMIX RW2, FUJIFILM RAF, and Apple ProRAW, alongside improved Nikon NEF decode and support for compressed ARW from the Sony A7V and newer cameras. This continues a steady widening of Resolve’s RAW reach, following the native ProRes RAW support added in version 20.2. There is also support for Sony Burano V3 clips and Insta360 I-Log in color management, plus improved EXIF metadata handling for stills formats.

On the still image and delivery side, Resolve 21 adds HDR decode for HEIC, JPEG, PNG, and TIFF, HEIC encode on macOS and Windows, and HDR encode for the same four formats. Broadcast workflows benefit from enhanced MXF growing file support and MXF OP1A support for MPEG2 bitrate and other encode options. The release also brings Intel QuickSync AV1 4:4:4 decode and encode, Windows on Arm H.265 10-bit 4:2:2 decode, and a per-render-job option to override RCM or ACES outputs.

Free versus Studio, and what carries over

As always, there is a free version and a paid Studio version of DaVinci Resolve 21. Blackmagic Design notes that the free version includes the same high-quality processing as Studio and can handle unlimited resolution media files, but it limits project mastering and output to Ultra HD resolution or lower and supports only a single processing GPU on Windows and Linux. The Studio version unlocks multiple GPUs, 4K output, motion blur effects, temporal and spatial noise reduction, the multiple AI-based tools, HDR tools, the camera tracker, voice isolation, surround and immersive audio, additional Resolve FX, 3D stereoscopic tools, and remote rendering.

Several general improvements apply across the board. There is a more powerful and flexible data burn-in window, searchable preferences and project settings, dynamic project switching for multi-user projects, a remote monitor app available with Resolve on Windows, support for importing and exporting Final Cut Pro 12 FCPXML, and up to 3x faster file sync performance to Blackmagic Cloud. Blackmagic also flags that Sony camera control on Windows requires the Sony IEDT application installed from Sony’s website.

On the hardware front, the macOS build now requires macOS 15 Sequoia or later on an Apple Silicon machine, with 8 GB of system memory or 16 GB when using Fusion. The Windows build calls for Windows 10 Creators Update, 16 GB of memory or 32 GB for Fusion, and a GPU with at least 4 GB of VRAM supporting OpenCL 1.2 or CUDA 12.8, with NVIDIA Studio driver 581.57 or newer. There is a separate Windows on Arm path requiring Windows 11 for Arm and a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processor, while the Linux build targets Rocky Linux 8.6 with 32 GB of memory and a discrete GPU with at least 4 GB of VRAM.

DaVinci Resolve 21 is available now as a free download from the Blackmagic Design website, with the paid Studio version sold separately. If you are coming from an older release, remember that opening a project in 21 closes the door on reopening it in 20.3.2, so back up first.

Are you ready to move your stills work into Resolve’s Photo page, or is the Fusion and keyframing overhaul the bigger draw for your workflow? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below!