UI theme

I just downloaded and installed DaVinci Resovle.

I have a big problem I'm hoping can be resolved.

The program uses (by default anyway) dark background and light letter. How can I switch to light background and dark letters?
The way it is now I can hardly read anything and it makes the program useless.

This is not user configurable.

Make sure your screens brightness and contrast is set up properly. This is a quick shot of my monitor and as you can see the text is perfectly legible.

Make sure your screens brightness and contrast is set up properly.

TFT style LCD monitors, whose viewing characteristics vary depending on the angle you view them at, can also be problematic for UI elements located at the top of the screen. Adjusting brightness and contrast to the point where items at the top of the screen are legible may wash out the central part of the screen. (Ask me how I know this...).

You can use background settings in Preferences. There will still be white letters on a dark background, but the background will be lighter than solid black.

This needs to be configurable.

Black on white works much better when projecting, which I need to do every time I teach Resolve.

This needs to be configurable.

Black on white works much better when projecting, which I need to do every time I teach Resolve.

Resolve is a tool designed to be used in a color suite. a dark theme is a must here. Creating both light and dark theme is actually not as easy and straight forward as it may seem. That's why it took many companies ages to add a dark theme to their websites and softwares.

Just installed free Davinci Resolve 18 on my 13" laptop to help adding Closed Captions on a ready video. Urgent job away from home. I also have an old but still very good dedicated NLE desktop, using PP CS6.
I tried the two options for very dark or very dark grey, and both are very uncomfortable for me using strong varifocal PC glasses.

standard theme

davinci theme.jpg (24.64 KiB) Viewed 148 times

Standard theme

dark grey theme

davinci theme grey.jpg (24.87 KiB) Viewed 148 times

Dark grey theme


For me, in a darker room, its ok, with a perfect angled monitor. However, in a normal work room, or with light from windows or in a lightened room, or with the monitor angled a bit too far backwards, the words on the top row become very hard to see unless I hover over them.

They should be more readable without having to adjust room lighting or monitor angle etc. Would be much better to have options to make the workspace lighter. Not white but lighter and better readable than now.

Resolve is a tool designed to be used in a color suite, a dark theme is a must here. Creating both light and dark theme is actually not as easy and straight forward as it may seem. That's why it took many companies ages to add a dark theme to their websites and softwares.

I made the crucial part of the quote bold. Yes, Davinci Resolve was was designed as a color correction suite, and there that was a good way to do things. However, it now has developed into a full-blown and very competitive NLE video editing software suite. I hope you can agree that the requirement for the latter are a bit different then for the first. I do not say that in several situations the dark option is bad.

We (there are many more like me) only ask that Davinci, like Premiere Pro and other NLEs, offers the option to have a lighter theme as well. Maybe people want to switch between themes depending on what they do. Now, we do not have that option and I think that for such a good program and very good Premier Pro alternative that option should be included.