Turn a Project Settings Preset into Resolve’s Default Settings

Every week, Frame.io Insider asks one of our expert contributors to share a tip, tool, or technique that they use all the time and couldn’t live without. This week, Laurence Grayson shares how you can turn a Resolve project preset into your default settings.

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Don’t get me wrong, DaVinci Resolve’s default project settings are very useful. But color is complicated and there may be times when you need to make changes to these defaults.

If this only happens to you from time to time, then your best approach is to create a project preset and apply this whenever you need to switch things around.

To create a project preset, go to File->Project Settings (Shift+9) and adjust the settings until you’ve got the setup you need for this client or project. If you hit Save, this will commit your current settings to that project. They won’t, however, affect any new projects you create, so create your preset by clicking on the ellipsis button (…) in the top right corner and choose Save Current Settings as Preset. Give it a name, hit OK, and you’ll be able to apply this preset to any new project from now on.

But if you find yourself habitually overriding Resolve’s default settings with a particular preset—like changing the frame rate from 24fps to your local PAL 25 or NTSC 29.97—then you might want to consider making things more permanent.

Turn your preset into Resolve’s default settings

1. Open File->Project Settings (Shift 9),
2. Hit the ellipsis button (…) in the top-right corner and find the preset you want to use.
3. Choose Set as Default Preset,
4. In the dialog popup, choose Set.
5. The preset settings will now be used for every new project you create.

Be warned that this does exactly what you’d expect it to, and cannot be easily reversed. So to be on the safe side, I’d recommend that you create a preset from Resolve’s default settings before you do anything else. That way, you’ll be able to repeat this process, using your “Resolve defaults” preset to return the system to its original state.