A Load XML dialog appears, with a number of options governing how to import the project
data. All of the defaults are fine; in particular, make sure to keep the “Automatically import
source clips into media pool” checkbox turned on. Click Ok.
Another file dialog appears. Since you moved the location of the media, the file paths specified
in the XML project file are no longer valid, and you must point Resolve to where the media is
now located.

Navigating Your Project
Now that your project is set up, it’s time to move to the Color page, where you’ll be doing the
majority of your work in Resolve.
1. Open the Color page by clicking the Color button at the bottom center of the Resolve
window

The Color page is where all the magic happens. All of the color correction functionality that
lets you adjust color, contrast, light, and shadow, either selectively or indiscriminately, is found
within the different palettes of this page

The Viewer at the upper left of the window lets you see the frame at the position of the
playhead in the Timeline, located at the middle of the window.
2. Click the Play button, at the bottom of the Viewer, to play through the timeline. When you’ve
seen the whole timeline play through, click the Stop button.

The transport controls let you play through your program, in real time if your system is powerful
enough for the type of media you’re working on, so that you can see how the adjustments
you’re making work as the clips play through.

The Thumbnail Timeline represents each clip in the timeline as a single image, making it easy
to spot the clip you need, and navigate to it by clicking.
4. Move the pointer to the timeline ruler, above the Mini-Timeline that contains a series of thin
bars, above the Thumbnail Timeline. Then, click and drag the pointer along the timeline ruler,
to the left and right, to move through all of the clips.

The Mini-Timeline provides a way of seeing the actual edit such that clip width represents
that clip’s duration. Dragging in the timeline ruler lets you scrub the playhead directly. The
Mini-Timeline can also be zoomed into and out of using the scroll wheel of your mouse.
Furthermore, you can click any clip in the Mini-Timeline to jump the playhead to its first frame,
as if you’d clicked a thumbnail.

Video Scopes for Grade Control
Now that you’ve seen how to navigate through the timeline, it’s time to begin creating some simple
color corrections. However, to help you make our corrections, you’ll open up the Video Scopes
window.
>>Right-click the Viewer, and choose Show Scopes from the contextual menu.

For now, move the Scopes window up to the top of the screen, off to the right so it doesn’t
get in the way of the palettes at the bottom of the Resolve window. You can resize the
Scopes window by dragging the lower righthand corner up.

Making a Primary Correction
Now that you know your way around the Timeline, it’s time to start grading

Underneath these, three Master wheels let you adjust the white point, the gamma (midtones),
and the black point independently of one another, in order to alter image contrast and image
lightness in different ways.

The dark image on the left is reflected in the parade and histogram

This clip is a bit dark, assuming you wanted a bright outdoors scene. The Master wheels will let
you address this.
3. Drag the Gamma Master wheel to the right to lighten the image. As you do so, you should
notice the middle of the Waveform move up, to show that the middle values of the image are
getting lighter

The graded image is brighter as scopes indicate

The image is lighter, but now the shadows are a bit washed out. Also, you should notice that a
rainbow indicator now appears underneath the first clip’s thumbnail in the Timeline. This lets
you know that clip 1 has a grade applied to it.