How to Use DaVinci Resolve AI Tools

The Magic Mask is perhaps the most famous of the DaVinci Resolve AI tools, allowing you to isolate people or specific objects without drawing tedious power windows. To use it, navigate to the Color page and locate the Magic Mask icon in the central toolbar. You can choose between Person mode, which identifies human features like hair, face, or limbs, and Object mode, which uses the Neural Engine to track any specific item you select. Use the qualifier picker to draw a simple stroke over the subject you want to isolate. You do not need to be precise; the AI will intelligently find the edges for you. Once your selection is made, click the Track Forward and Backward button. In 2026, the tracking speed is significantly faster on modern GPUs, but if you find the mask drifting, you can add 'exclusion' strokes by holding Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) and drawing over the areas the AI accidentally included. For the best results, always set the quality to Better rather than Faster if your hardware allows it. This tool is a game-changer for secondary color grading, allowing you to brighten a subject's face or change the color of their clothing without affecting the background.

Audio quality can make or break a video, and the AI Voice Isolation tool is designed to save recordings that were previously considered unusable. This tool effectively removes background hums, traffic noise, and even room reverb while keeping the human voice crisp. You can find this feature in the Inspector panel under the Audio tab on either the Edit or Fairlight pages. Simply toggle the Voice Isolation switch to activate it. There is a single slider that controls the intensity; 100% provides total isolation, but dialling it back to 70% or 80% often sounds more natural as it retains a hint of the environment. A common mistake beginners make is over-processing the audio. If you hear 'underwater' artifacts, try reducing the isolation strength. Additionally, DaVinci Resolve includes a Dialogue Leveler AI tool right next to the isolation toggle. This automatically adjusts the gain of different speakers to ensure a consistent volume throughout the clip. Using these two tools in tandem eliminates the need for complex compression chains and manual volume keyframing, which is particularly useful for podcasts and interview-style content.

In the current fast-paced social media landscape, subtitles are mandatory. DaVinci Resolve uses AI to transcribe your audio into text with incredible accuracy. To start, right-click a clip or a timeline in the Media Pool and select Audio Transcription > Transcribe. A window will appear showing the full text of your video. You can even edit your video by highlight-deleting text in this window; deleting a sentence in the transcription window automatically cuts that section out of your timeline. This is known as text-based editing and is a massive time-saver for long-form interviews. To generate actual on-screen subtitles, go to the Timeline menu and select Create Subtitles from Audio. You can choose the maximum number of characters per line and the caption preset. Once the AI finishes processing, a new subtitle track will appear at the top of your timeline. You can then use the Track Style tab in the Inspector to change the font, size, and background for all subtitles simultaneously. The 2026 update has improved support for multiple accents and regional dialects, significantly reducing the amount of manual proofreading required.

If you are working with older 1080p footage or heavy crops in a 4K project, the Super Scale AI tool can upscale your media while recreating lost detail. This is not a simple stretch; the Neural Engine analyzes the pixels and predicts what the high-resolution detail should look like. To access this, right-click your clip in the Media Pool, select Clip Attributes, and navigate to the Video tab. At the bottom, you will find the Super Scale dropdown menu. You can choose 2x, 3x, or 4x scaling. There are also settings for Sharpness and Noise Reduction within the Super Scale menu. Be careful with the 'Sharpness' slider; setting it too high can create an artificial 'plastic' look on skin tones. A professional tip is to use the Enhanced mode rather than the standard mode for a more natural texture. Because this process is computationally expensive, it is best to apply it at the very end of your edit or to 'Render in Place' the clip so that your timeline playback remains smooth.

The Relight FX tool is a sophisticated AI feature that generates a 3D depth map from 2D footage, allowing you to add virtual light sources to a scene after it has been shot. Navigate to the Color page, open the Effects library, and search for Relight. Drag this onto a new node. The AI will first analyze the scene to understand where the foreground and background are located. You can then add a 'Point Light,' 'Directional Light,' or 'Spotlight' and move it around the frame. As you move the virtual light, you will notice the shadows and highlights on your subject's face shift realistically, as if a real lamp was being moved on set. This is incredibly useful for adding a 'rim light' to separate a subject from a dark background or for fixing a shot where the lighting was too flat. For the most realistic look, match the color temperature of your virtual light to the existing lights in the scene. Keep in mind that this tool requires a significant amount of GPU VRAM; if your system is struggling, try generating the depth map separately and caching it.

The following table summarizes the primary AI tools available in the Studio version of DaVinci Resolve and their typical use cases. While some basic AI features are available in the free version, the most powerful Neural Engine capabilities require a Studio license.

AI Tool	Best Use Case	UI Location
Magic Mask	Isolating people or objects for grading	Color Page > Magic Mask
Voice Isolation	Removing background noise from dialogue	Inspector > Audio
Super Scale	Upscaling old or cropped footage	Clip Attributes > Video
Smart Reframe	Converting 16:9 video to 9:16 for TikTok	Inspector > Video
Relight FX	Changing lighting in post-production	Color Page > Effects Library
Face Refinement	Smoothing skin and brightening eyes	Color Page > Effects Library

AI tools in DaVinci Resolve are extremely demanding on your hardware, specifically your GPU. If you experience crashes when using Magic Mask or Relight, the first thing to check is your VRAM usage. For 4K AI processing, a minimum of 8GB of VRAM is recommended. If your system is underpowered, you can improve performance by going to Playback > Proxy Handling > Prefer Proxies. This allows the AI to calculate its tracking data on lower-resolution files, though you should always switch back to original media for the final export to ensure accuracy. Another common issue is the 'Media Offline' error or the disappearance of tracked data. This usually happens if the clip's timing is changed after the tracking was completed. If you trim the beginning of a clip that has a Magic Mask, you may need to re-analyze the track. To prevent this, perform your AI tasks after your primary edit is 'locked.' Finally, ensure your GPU drivers are up to date; Blackmagic frequently releases updates that optimize the Neural Engine for the latest NVIDIA and AMD driver architectures.