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3 Ways to Copy Color Grades FAST in Resolve

In this DaVinci Resolve tutorial you’ll learn three different ways to color grade your footage faster. Watch the live demonstration in the video or read the transcript below!

Typically when color grading, you’ll have multiple shots from the same scene or shots from different scenes with similar lighting and setup. If you were to grade each one separately it would take a REALLY long time.

When you’ve finally got your first shot dialed in and want to apply it to the rest of your footage here are 3 different methods you can use:

Method 1 – Creating Stills

  1. Right click in the program viewer and go to Grab Still. If you open up the gallery, you’ll see the new still that was created. When you hover over a still in the gallery viewer, it gives a preview of what that grade is going to look like when it gets applied to your new clip.
  2. Right click and choose Apply Grade from the dropdown menu. Now you’ll see that the grade from the still has been applied to the new clip in the timeline.

Note: After the grade has been copied, you have the ability to modify the grade further on an individual basis. It’s a one-way process and not linked to any other grade or still.

how to copy color grades in davinci resolve using stills

Method 2 – The Mouse

  1. Select the clip that you want to apply the copied grade TO.
  2. Find the clip that you want to copy the grade FROM in the timeline. Click on it with your center mouse button, that’s the wheel.
  3. Hover over that clip in your timeline and push down firmly with the wheel on your mouse.
  4. And just like that, Resolve will copy the color grade from one clip to another.

Note: Using your mouse to copy a grade is much easier than going through the process of creating stills. Stills are useful if you’re going to be copying that grade to a large number of clips, almost as if you want to save that grade as a favorite so you can reapply it throughout your timeline to various clips.

copying color grades in DaVinci Resolve using the mouse wheel

Method 3 – Hotkeys

Here’s one last example of how to copy a grade from one clip to another – using hotkeys. In Resolve, there are hotkeys for copying the color grade from the previous clip in your timeline and for copying the grade from the clip BEFORE the previous clip in your timeline. Those are the minus (-) and the plus (+) keys.

  1. If you hold down on shift and hit the minus (-) key, Resolve will copy the color grade from the previous clip in your timeline. You will see that it’s copied the grade because you will have a new icon appear in your node.
  2. If you want to copy the grade of the clip BEFORE the previous clip, you’ll hold down shift and use the plus (+) hotkey.

Note: It doesn’t matter if you have existing color corrections on a clip because when you copy the grade it will overwrite everything that you’ve had there previously.

copying color grades fast in davinci resolve using hotkeys

Wrap Up

In your edits, you’ll often have lots of shots that have similar color grading needs. They might be the same setup. They might be from the same scene. Whatever the case, these tips will allow you to copy a color grade from one clip to another and really speed up your workflow.

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