One of my staple finishing moves for highlight edits is to apply a default transition to every cut in the timeline. In Premiere, that means setting a default transition, selecting all clips, and hitting Sequence → Apply Default Transition. DaVinci Resolve has an equivalent workflow — in fact it has two, and if you own a Speed Editor panel, it arguably does this job better than Premiere ever did. Here’s how it all fits together.
Setting your default transition and duration (Edit Page)
Resolve calls it the standard transition. Out of the box it’s a Cross Dissolve, which is probably what you want anyway for bulk edits. To change it, head to the Edit page, open the Effects library, right-click any transition and choose Set as Standard Transition.
The duration lives somewhere else entirely: DaVinci Resolve → Preferences → User tab → Editing → Standard transition duration. You can specify it in seconds or frames.
One caveat worth thinking about if you’re migrating muscle memory from Premiere: frames and seconds diverge depending on your timeline frame rate. A 30-frame dissolve on a 30fps Premiere sequence is a full second; the same 30 frames on a 60fps timeline is a snappy half-second. Decide whether you want to match the frame count or the feel — they’re not the same thing.
Applying transitions one edit at a time (Cut page and Speed Editor)
The Cut page works with a “smart indicator” — a small marker in the timeline that shows which edit point the playhead is closest to. You don’t need to park exactly on a cut; the nearest edit point wins. With the Speed Editor panel, three dedicated keys then do the work:
- DIS applies a cross dissolve at the nearest edit point
- CUT removes any transition and reverts the edit to a straight cut — think of it as the undo for the other two
- SMTH CUT applies Smooth Cut, Resolve’s morphing transition (more on that below)
The real gem is duration adjustment: hold TRANS DUR and turn the dial, and the transition length at the current edit changes live while you watch the result in the viewer. Rather than typing a number and hoping, you feel your way to the right length. It’s one of those moments where the Speed Editor’s fixed-function philosophy pays off — one labelled button, one job, no setup.
A nice design detail: even if you override the standard transition to something else, the panel keys keep their printed meaning. DIS always applies a dissolve, CUT always reverts to a cut. The labels never lie.
For a typical highlight clip with a handful of cuts, the loop is: jump from edit to edit (up/down arrow keys move between edit points on the Cut page), tap DIS at each one. A few seconds of work, all without leaving the sofa.
Applying transitions to the whole timeline at once (Edit page)
The bulk operation — the true equivalent of Premiere’s Apply Default Transition — lives on the Edit page. Select every clip on the timeline with Cmd+A (Ctrl+A on Windows), then press Cmd+T (Ctrl+T). Resolve places your standard transition at the standard duration on every edit point between the selected clips, in one stroke.
If you prefer the mouse, the same option is available in the right-click context menu with clips selected. Either way, processing a whole batch of highlight timelines becomes: open timeline, Cmd+A, Cmd+T, next.
Two gotchas to look out for
Handles. Just like in Premiere, a dissolve needs media beyond the cut on both sides. If your clips come from long recordings, handles are virtually guaranteed — except where you marked an IN point at the very first frame of the source. If a transition doesn’t fit, Resolve tells you rather than silently shortening it, and you can fix that edit individually.
Stragglers. The bulk apply also puts transitions at the very start and very end of the timeline if handles allow. A fade-in at the top might be welcome; a dissolve into nothing at the tail rarely is. Zoom out and check both ends after the bulk pass — Shift+Z fits the whole timeline into view (and pressing it again bounces you back to your previous zoom level, which makes it perfect for a quick check).
Bonus: Smooth Cut, the invisible jump cut
Smooth Cut is Resolve’s answer to Premiere’s Morph Cut: an optical-flow transition that morphs across a jump, designed to hide trims within a continuous shot — tightening dead air out of an interview or a facecam reaction, for instance. It’s the same hit-or-miss affair as Morph Cut: fast motion breaks the illusion, but when it works, it works remarkably well and the trim simply disappears.
One pleasant difference from Premiere: there’s no background analysis pass with a progress banner. Resolve computes Smooth Cut in real time on the GPU. If a particular instance stutters during playback, the Smart render cache will quietly bake it during idle moments, and it plays back smoothly from cache afterwards.
And that’s the whole story: per-edit finesse on the Cut page with the Speed Editor’s dedicated keys, carpet-bombing on the Edit page with Cmd+A and Cmd+T, and a quick check for stragglers at both ends. I’ve tried this workflow (and the Speed Editor gadget) on my latest Fortnite highlight clips, and it was a lot of fun learning a new way to edit without Premiere.