How to Paint with Perspective in DaVinci Resolve Fusion
Fusion Paint Secrets
Have you ever needed to remove an object and thought - I need a fancy new AI feature to remove a label like this to cleanup a product box? Let me start by saying. YOU ARE NOT ALONE. But…. We actually have all the tools needed even in the Free Version of DaVinci Resolve’s Fusion page for high end re-touching. You’ll learn how to remove perspective to clone easier, how to improve performance with the crop tool and a tool built into the paint node that probably never touched!
This 4k footage is added here on creativevideotips.com/cuttingclub if you’d like to join in and follow along.
The Setup
Perspective Positioner Node will allow you to flatten out a surface with straight lines. I like to adjust the points while looking at the original media and then fine-tune it with the grid turned on as a vertical or horizontal reference.
The Corner Positioner Node will allow you to invert the position of the pixels back to their original location. The catch here is you need to publish the Perspective Positioners corners, so in the Conrner Positioner, you can use the “connect to” feature.
Consider using a “crop” sandwich for improved performance on high-resolution footage. The crop node will lower the resolution to a bounding box you can drag out on screen to help your computers resources so you can render faster. But after you paint, you’ll need to uncrop back out to the original location before the paint cleanup.
To “uncrop”, copy and paste the original crop node. Set the resolution to the original footage size - in this example it should be set back to 3840x2160. And the place a negative (minus) number in front of both of the offset values.
Merge the new patch over the Media In 1 footage and you’re ready to Paint!
Painting in Fusion
The paint node in Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve Fusion is far more powerful than I think I have ever realized. The typical paint artist will gravitate toward the stroke brush, the 3rd one over, because this allows for changes after the fact, and it defaults to paint on all comp frames. However, my new favorite tool is the Copy Rectangle, which will allow you to select an area for replacement and cloning and flip it, flop it, soften it, scale it, and rotate it.
The copy rectangle paint tool is like having a transform with a mask with a merge, all built into a single layer of the paint node. With just a few layers of overlapping copy rectangles, you can remove objects and patch-replace just about any surface easily.
Yes, there are so many new generative AI tools that are hitting the market every year, but honestly - sometimes, being able to really know what is happening to our images and becoming a better craftsman and artist is what makes me excited. I’m thankful there are powerful tools like this right under the hood in my favorite video editing software.
