DaVinci Resolve 21 launches Photo page with RAW editing and AI tools to challenge Adobe Lightroom

Blackmagic's DaVinci Resolve 21 takes on Adobe Lightroom with a new Photo page

Many creators have already switched from Adobe Premiere to DaVinci Resolve, and now the developer, Blackmagic Design, is going after Lightroom and Photoshop. The Australian company just unveiled DaVinci Resolve 21 in beta at the NAB 2026 broadcast convention with a brand new page called Photo designed to let you do things like crop and color-correct still images. At the same time, the new version introduces video AI tools that can age a subject or reshape their facial features. DaVinci Resolve has always let you edit photos as clips on a video timeline, but now it's greatly simplified with the Photo page. You can import and manage photographs, including RAW files, directly into the new page. Then, you adjust them using the node-based Color page that offers similar and arguably even more powerful tools than Adobe's Lightroom. Just as with video, the Color page includes primary color correction, curves, qualifiers and power windows (along with noise reduction, sharpening and more). However, where Resolve's node-based workflow really shines for photo editing. You can add nodes in series or parallel to build complex grades, then save them to apply to other images or an entire photo album. You can also reframe and crop images at their original source resolution and aspect ratio, without affecting the original image quality. The LightBox view lets you see an entire album with grades applied. "Select any image and grade it live while seeing the results update across the whole collection in real time. Filter by graded, ungraded, star rating, flag and clip color," Blackmagic Design explains in a press release. Albums, meanwhile, let you build collections like you do in Lightroom. Those also appear as timelines in the Color, Cut and Edit pages for easy access. For pro photographers, the Color page includes camera controls that let you tether a Sony or Canon camera to Resolve for live image capture, while adjusting settings like ISO, exposure and white balance. You can save capture presets to "lock in a consistent look before customers shoot," according to Blackmagic. Other Resolve tools also work with the Photo page, like the AI Magic Mask that lets you make one click selections of an object or person. It's also possible to do advanced VFX on still photos using Resolve's Fusion page, or add OpenFX or FusionFX filters directly on the Photo page. Finally, you can collaborate with others using Blackmagic Cloud, thought that does require a paid subscription. I briefly tested the color tool and, as someone who's admittedly familiar with DaVinci Resolve, I found it easy to grasp. It's simple to import and organize images (easier than Lightroom in my opinion) and is as powerful as Lightroom's Develop page for most adjustments, though I really missed the latter's "Clarity" tool. The node based workflow is powerful, and Resolve makes it easier to apply adjustments to multiple images. When you're ready to export, that's done through a special photo-only version of the "Export" page and is relatively intuitive as well. Whether or not I'll cancel my Photoshop/Lightroom subscription remains to be seen, however. On top of the Photo page, Blackmagic Design introduced a number of new tools for video and VFX as well. Among the most interesting ones are a series of AI tools for facial adjustments. The AI Face Age Transformer tools lets you analyze a face, enter the subject's age and adjust the age offset slider to add things like wrinkles and facial fullness. You can also change the way a subject looks through the AI Face Reshaper tool that lets you adjust the eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows and overall face shape. Plus, you get an AI Blemish Removal feature that reduces the appearance of superficial skin imperfections like acne, discoloration and large pores, while retaining the skin's natural texture. Another tool that will no doubt get used a lot is AI UltraSharpen that can upscale video "to make previously unusable footage sharp in higher resolutions," according to the company. It can also be used to improve slight focus errors. Meanwhile, the AI Motion Deblur fixes slightly blurred images, making it particularly useful for slow motion and freeze frame shots. Other key new upgrades, to name just a few, include the ability to edit Fusion effects from within the Cut and Edit pages, the addition of the Krokodove library of compositing tools and new immersive VR tools for delivery to platforms like Meta Quest and YouTube VR. Most of the new features are available in Blackmagic Design's free version of DaVinci Resolve, though a couple of tools (AI Magic Mask and Film Look Creator) are only available with the paid, $295 DaVinci Resolve Studio version. A complete list of new features is here and you can download the free and paid versions here.

DaVinci Resolve 21 is Now a Lightroom Alternative: RAW Editing, Tethering, Masking, and More

Blackmagic Design announced DaVinci Resolve 21, a major update to the company's popular video editing platform. Despite being a video editor, one of DaVinci Resolve 21's biggest new features is a brand-new Photo page that enables colorists and photographers to use Resolve to edit still photos. Blackmagic says that Resolve's "powerful post-production workflow now fully integrates photo image editing," enabling the software's color page and node-based grading on still photos. "DaVinci Resolve's powerful node based workflow can now be used on still images. It's possible to add nodes in series or parallel to build complex grades, apply different corrections to different parts of an image simultaneously and use shared nodes to apply the same look across an entire album of photos at once," the company explains. The new Photo page lets users reframe and crop images at their original resolution and aspect ratio, and every adjustment in Resolve 21 preserves the full quality of the original file, which sounds like non-destructive image editing. The software also supports RAW files, and Resolve FX and Open FX plug-ins can be used on still images from the new Photo page. The app's LUT support for videos also carries over to still photos. DaVinci Resolve 21's native AI tools, including AI Magic Mask, work on photo files as well, enabling one-click masking of an object or person. Using these and manual selection tools, photographers can locally edit parts of a file. There's also a new AI UltraSharpen feature to upscale low-resolution content, including videos and photos. Beyond image editing and color grading tools, Resolve 21 includes a LightBox view that lets users browse an entire photo album, and it offers filters for edit status, star ratings, flags, and clip colors. Users can create photo albums based on shoot days, camera models, or other desired criteria. The app also supports importing Lightroom catalogs. Further, Sony and Canon cameras can be directly connected and tethered inside DaVinci Resolve for live image capture. The app supports camera setting adjustments for compatible models, including ISO, exposure, and white balance. The Photo page also works with DaVinci Resolve's robust multiuser collaboration workflow tools, including Blackmagic Cloud. There are many new features in DaVinci Resolve 21 for videographers, video editors, and colorists. IntelliSearch is a new content search tool that uses AI to analyze media and find specific objects or keywords within dialog. It can also be used to locate specific people in clips. Users can generate speech from written text using one of Blackmagic's built-in voice models or user-recorded audio clips. A new AI CineFocus feature lets users click to focus on a specific area of a scene, then adjust the aperture and focal range to simulate depth-of-field effects. Manual controls let editors tweak the aperture shape and add optical effects. This feature also works with keyframe parameters, allowing users to simulate rack focus. Although surely not everyone's cup of tea, the new AI Face Age Transformer and AI Face Reshaper tools let users adjust a person's visible age in a clip or change their facial features and shapes. Likewise, an AI Blemish Removal tool reduces the appearance of superficial skin imperfections, like acne, spots, and pores, while retaining natural skin texture. The aforementioned AI UltraSharpen tool can increase the apparent resolution of low-quality video, but it can also be used to correct or fix minor focus errors, according to Blackmagic Design. AI Motion Deblur aims to remove common blur artifacts, like streaks and softness. These are just a small number of the total number of new features and improvements. A more comprehensive list of changes are available on Blackmagic Design's website. The DaVinci Resolve 21 public beta is available to download now for free. As usual, there will be a free version of DaVinci Resolve 21. A fully-featured version will cost $295 when it is available.

DaVinci Resolve just became a photo-editing app, and it could be a game changer

DaVinci Resolve has long held a place in our guide to the best video editing software. It seems we might soon have to add it to our pick of the best photo editing software too. The app's developer, Blackmagic Design, has announced a flurry of news ahead of the NAB 2026 trade show in Las Vegas next week. There's new hardware, but the headline announcement for a lot of 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 towards the end of the presentation above, DaVinci Resolve 21 is now available in public beta, and the update is huge. There are lots of new AI features for video editing, but the really radical change is the addition of a dedicated Photo page, allowing the software's Hollywood-level colour-grading tools to be used to edit stills. 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 at their original source resolution and aspect ratio. The really powerful part is integration with the Color page, allowing full use of DaVinci's node-based system to apply primary colour corrections, curves, qualifiers and power windows just like you would on video. Nodes can be added in series or parallel to build complex grades, and localised corrections can be applied to different parts of an image simultaneously. You can also use shared nodes to apply the same grade across an entire album of photos at once to save time. Resolve FX and Open FX plug-in support is available on the Photo page. You can apply LUTs, effects, graphics, transforms and DCTLs, and you can also use DaVinci Resolve's native 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. This allows you to select an image, grade it and see the results update across the collection in real time. There are even tethered shooting capabilities. Camera Controls allow images to be captured live from Canon and Sony cameras directly to the software. You can adjust settings such as ISO, exposure, white balance, monitor with live view and save capture presets before shooting and saving images directly into an album. This update could shake up a lot of photographers and content creators' workflows, particularly for those who work with both stills and video. DaVinci Resolve Studio is already the industry-leading program for colour grading and effects, and its one-off cost makes it a relatively economical alternative to subscription-based software like Adobe's Premiere. There's even a free version that has most of the basic features to get started. Photo-editing in DaVinci resolve doesn't have the same vast multitude of tools as Photoshop for masking, retouching and compositing, but the image organisation and colour-grading tools could make it a very attractive alternative to an app like Lightroom. What else is new in DaVinci Resolve 21? As well as the new Photo page, DaVinci Resolve 21 introduces a load of new features for video editors. There's a bunch of new AI-powered tools, including AI Face Age Transformer for aging and de-aging faces - you enter the subject's age and adjust the age offset slider to add or remove wrinkles and facial fullness. There's also an AI Face Reshaper for changing the size of facial features and AI Blemish Removal. AI IntelliSearch to search clips for people or objects, AI Speech Generator can turn written text to spoken voice and there's a new AI UltraSharpen tool, AI Motion Deblur and AI CineFocus for lens effects. The DaVinci Resolve 21 public beta is free to download from the Blackmagic Design website for existing customers who have bought the full studio version of DaVinci Resolve.