Insider Tips: How to Use Resolve’s Hidden Edit Overlay

Every week, Frame.io Insider asks one of our expert contributors to share a tip, tool, or technique that they couldn’t live without. Laurence Grayson shares how to coax Resolve’s Edit Overlay out of its corner.

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I’m more at home in Premiere Pro, so it’s not surprising that I didn’t know about DaVinci Resolve’s Edit Overlay feature. But I’ve asked around and it turns out that I’m not the only person to miss it. So here’s what the Edit Overlay is, and how you go about using it.

The DaVinci Resolve Edit Overlay

You’ll already know that primary editing tools like Overwrite, Replace, or Insert have buttons in the Edit workspace. They also have their own shortcut keys (like F9 for Insert, F10 for Overwrite, and F11 for Replace).

But you might not know that that these editing tools can also be accessed with a simple drag and drop operation.

How to use the Resolve Edit Overlay

1. Open Resolve’s Edit workspace.
2. Place the playhead at the point in the timeline you want to perform an edit.
3. Double click or drag the source clip in the the Source preview.
4. Set your In or Out points by scrubbing the source clip to the required times and hitting I for and O respectively.
5. Now click and drag the Source preview over to the Timeline preview and the Edit Overlay will slide in from the right.
6. Release the Source preview on the required function—Insert, Overwrite, Replace, Fit to Fill, Place on Top, Append at End, or Ripple Overwrite—and your choice will be applied at the playhead location.

You’ll already know that you can scrub your footage in the Media Library. But you can also use the I and O keys to set In and Out points there, as well. I mention this here because you can activate the Edit Overlay with clips you drag from the Media Library, too.

Note that this feature is exclusive to the Edit workspace. The Edit Overlay will not appear if you drag clips to the Timeline Preview in the Cut workspace.