Newbie Questions -- Come from FCP 7 and Premiere Pro

I am new to Resolve DaVinci. I work with Final Cut 7 and Premiere Pro CC as well. I downloaded the free version of DaVinci Resolve.

I have a few questions.

A) Can I or Do I have to render the timeline while I am working to see how a transition or effect looks? If so, how do I do that?

B) When I press "Save Project" Where does it save to?

C) When I press "Export Project" I can pick the spot where I want to save it. How do I open that saved project? Can I double click on the Project File and it will just open the program to that project?

D) How can I make a clip on the timeline Black and White?

E) How can I make a solid color Black or White so I can put that in front of a clip and add a crossfade transition to it so the clip fades in from black?

F) Is there an Add Edit function or do I have to use the Razor Blade to do that?


I am using a Mac.

Thank You.

I am new to Resolve DaVinci. I work with Final Cut 7 and Premiere Pro CC as well. I downloaded the free version of DaVinci Resolve.

Welcome

A) Can I or Do I have to render the timeline while I am working to see how a transition or effect looks? If so, how do I do that?

You can, but you don't have to; just put the transition or effect on a clip in the timeline. I recommend enabling smart caching if you're experiencing performance issues, since some effects can be quite compute heavy.

B) When I press "Save Project" Where does it save to?

The Resolve DB. IIRC you can control where that lives in DB management panel in the project manager; there's a normally hidden tab that you can click to reveal it. (Check the manual for more details on this.)

C) When I press "Export Project" I can pick the spot where I want to save it. How do I open that saved project? Can I double click on the Project File and it will just open the program to that project?

You'd have to re-import it to the DB in order to open it. Exporting it is generally for either backing up the project or moving it to another machine.

D) How can I make a clip on the timeline Black and White?

I don't remember whether or not there are any black and white conversion effects, but since Resolve has a rather extensive color grading toolset, that's your best bet.

E) How can I make a solid color Black or White so I can put that in front of a clip and add a crossfade transition to it so the clip fades in from black?

Move the clip to make some space, and add a fade transition, that's all. It's quite easy, and most of the transitions work like they do in Premiere and FCP.

F) Is there an Add Edit function or do I have to use the Razor Blade to do that?

Do you mean to add a cut to a clip in the timeline? The razor blade is the easy way, though I think there's also a hot key that I don't know off the top of my head that will do that.