DaVinci Resolve edits your Blackmagic Camera app footage and full Blackmagic RAW clips alike, with no plugin needed for either. The same free program covers both cases completely.
If you have not read why Blackmagic RAW exists as its own format yet, that page gives useful background. This page only covers getting footage into Resolve and recovering detail in bright highlights.
Importing Your Footage into DaVinci Resolve
DaVinci Resolve accepts H.264, H.265, ProRes, and Blackmagic RAW without any extra plugin. Dragging a file into the media pool works the same way regardless of which format it is.
- Open DaVinci Resolve and create or open a project.
- Find your footage on your computer’s storage.
- Drag the file directly into the media pool.
- Double click the clip to load it into the source viewer.
If you do not have footage on hand yet, free Blackmagic RAW samples gives you real clips to practice with. Any format works for this first step, so start with whatever you actually have.
Highlight Recovery for Blackmagic RAW Footage
Highlight Recovery is a checkbox in the Camera Raw panel that pulls in extra sensor data from bright areas. Standard decoding normally throws that data away.
This option only works on Blackmagic RAW footage, since compressed formats like H.264 never keep that extra data. Turning it on for footage from the phone app itself does nothing useful.
Despite the name, a fully blown highlight with zero remaining data cannot come back. The feature only helps highlights that sit close to clipping, and it can introduce visible color artifacts while doing so.
This kind of recovery is one real reason RAW footage stays useful even after conversion decisions get made. Read compare it against standard ProRes to see the full trade off between the two formats.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does highlight recovery work on regular video, not just RAW?
No. The feature depends on extra sensor data that only Blackmagic RAW keeps, which formats like H.264 discard during recording.
Can highlight recovery fix a completely blown out sky or window?
Not if the highlight is fully clipped, with no data left at all. It only helps areas that sit close to clipping, not ones already gone.
Where exactly is highlight recovery located in DaVinci Resolve?
Inside the Camera Raw panel, on the color page for a selected clip. It appears as a simple checkbox you can toggle at any time.
Do I need DaVinci Resolve Studio, the paid version, for this feature?
No. Highlight recovery works in the free version of DaVinci Resolve as well.