The Inspector doesn't show one fixed set of project controls. It shows whatever belongs to the item you've selected: a clip, title, transition, generator, subtitle or an applied effect. Change the selection and the panel changes with it.
When it looks blank or a control seems to have vanished, check the selected timeline item and the tab first. Only after that is it worth looking at panel width, a template or plug-in, or the Resolve build you're running.
What the Inspector Controls
| Selected item | Inspector shows | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Video clip | Video, Audio, Effects, Image/File when relevant | Framing, clip sound, applied effects, source properties |
| Audio-only clip | Audio and File | Clip volume, pan, pitch, EQ, metadata |
| Title or generator | Custom text/design controls plus settings | Content, font, layout, animation |
| Transition | Transition controls | Duration, alignment, style-specific parameters |
| OpenFX effect | Effects controls | Effect strength, masks, blend, animation |
| Fusion composition | Published controls | Parameters intentionally exposed from Fusion |
The Inspector changes a timeline instance. Project Settings decide timeline-wide behavior, the Color page holds node-based corrections, Fairlight looks after track and bus processing, and Fusion owns its node graph. When a clip looks or sounds different from what its Inspector values say, keeping those scopes apart is the fastest way I know to find the cause.
Blackmagic's official Edit page describes Inspector animation, Dynamic Zoom, stabilization, lens correction, titles, transitions and picture-in-picture work. For the exact panel behavior and control definitions, everything below follows the DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual, in its 21.1 edition.
Open the Inspector and Select the Right Item
- Switch to the Edit page or the Cut page.
- Click the exact clip, transition, title or effect you want to change.
- Click Inspector in the upper-right toolbar.
- Read the Inspector header and make sure it matches the timeline item you just selected.
- Open the tab that owns the setting: Video, Audio, Effects, Transition, Image or File. Tabs that don't apply to the selection are grayed out.
A Media Pool source and a timeline instance are separate scopes. Settings you change on the Media Pool clip ride along into any later edit of it. An instance already in the timeline stays independent and doesn't rewrite the Media Pool settings.
For animation in a cut, select the timeline instance. On stacked tracks, click the exact upper or lower clip instead of trusting what you see in the Viewer.
Video Inspector: Transform
Transform decides where the picture sits inside the timeline frame:
- Zoom X/Y: scales width and height. Leave the two linked for normal proportional scaling, and unlink them only when you actually want to stretch or squeeze the image.
- Position X/Y: moves the image left and right or up and down.
- Rotation Angle: turns the clip around its anchor point.
- Anchor Point X/Y: shifts the pivot that rotation and scale use, rather than just sliding the visible image.
- Pitch and Yaw: tilt the picture around its horizontal and vertical axes for a perspective-style angle.
- Flip: mirrors the image horizontally or vertically.
For a normal reframe, Zoom and Position do the work. I'd move Anchor Point only when the motion needs a different pivot, say a graphic swinging from one corner. In Studio, Smart Reframe sits just below and can pan a wide shot into a very different aspect ratio. The aspect-ratio guide shows these controls inside a vertical or square timeline.
Cropping
Cropping cuts pixels off the left, right, top or bottom of the visible clip, and the cropped area turns transparent so lower tracks show through. A negative Softness value feathers inside the crop box; a positive value feathers outside it. With Retain Image Position turned on, the crop stays locked while you resize with Transform. Turn it off when the crop should scale and move along with the image.
Crop and Zoom solve different problems. Crop hides an edge, while Zoom changes the scale of everything. For a split screen, crop each layer and place it with Position. For a simple reframe, Transform alone is usually enough.
Dynamic Zoom
Dynamic Zoom builds a start-to-end push, pull or pan without a stack of manual Transform keyframes. It's off by default. Turn it on, switch the Viewer overlay to Dynamic Zoom, and adjust the green start frame and red end frame. Swap reverses the move, and Dynamic Zoom Ease offers Linear, Ease In, Ease Out or Ease In and Out.
Don't run Dynamic Zoom and manual Zoom/Position keyframes on the same clip unless you really want both at once. If the framing starts doing things you can't predict, switch one system off and rebuild the move with a single method.
Composite
Composite Mode decides how the selected clip combines with the tracks below it. Normal uses ordinary compositing and still respects the clip's alpha channel and Opacity; it doesn't force a transparent graphic to become opaque. Modes such as Screen, Multiply or Add use different mathematical blends. Opacity sets how much of the selected clip contributes to the result.
You can use Opacity even with no clip underneath: Blackmagic's Inspector compositing instructions explain that the clip then mixes with black. To judge a blend between two images, check track order, disabled tracks, and whether the lower layer has visible pixels at that frame.
Speed Change, Stabilization, and Lens Correction
Speed Change handles a constant clip-speed adjustment: Direction (forward, backward or freeze frame), Speed %, Frames Per Second or an exact Duration, plus Ripple Sequence and Pitch Correction. For a variable speed ramp, open Retime Controls and the curve editor rather than forcing the job through one percentage field. The Resolve keyboard guide lists the shortcuts that get you there faster.
Stabilization analyzes camera motion and smooths or locks the shot. Pick the mode first (Perspective, Similarity or Translation), because switching it later means clicking Stabilize again. The other controls cover camera lock, zoom, Cropping Ratio, smoothing and strength; a Cropping Ratio of 1.0 applies no stabilization, and lower values get more aggressive. Start moderate, then watch the edges and subject motion. Stronger isn't automatically better, and warping or a heavy crop can look worse than the original shake.
Lens Correction is Studio-only. Analyze examines edges in the frame at the current playhead and moves the Distortion slider for you; drag Distortion back to the left if the correction goes too far. It isn't a camera-profile lookup, so don't read a missing control as a missing lens profile.
Retime and Scaling
This section decides how Resolve creates frames and how mismatched media fits the timeline:
- Retime Process: chooses how new frames are produced: the Project Settings default, Nearest, Frame Blend or Optical Flow.
- Motion Estimation: picks the optical-flow analysis mode, from Standard and Enhanced up to Speed Warp, when Optical Flow is active.
- Scaling: can crop, fit, fill or stretch this one clip, or follow the project setting.
- Resize Filter: picks the resampling filter, such as Sharper, Smoother, Bicubic or Bilinear, used when the image is resized.
These per-clip options can override the project's general mismatch rule. That's handy for one awkward source, and it's also why one clip ends up with bars while every other clip fills the frame.
With Optical Flow, judge the result on the actual shot. Blackmagic's manual says the highest-quality motion-estimation option isn't always the best choice for a particular clip, and I'd take that literally. Speed Warp is Studio-only, and AI Speed Warp Metal is macOS-only.
Super Scale and Source-Specific Controls
Super Scale is Studio-only source processing, not a per-instance Zoom. It raises the processed source resolution by 2x, 3x or 4x, is processor-intensive, and works like a Clip Attributes setting, so changing it affects every edit that references the selected media. Cache or optimized media helps, but a compressed or out-of-focus source still has limited real detail.
RAW clips and certain image formats add their own controls under Image or File. Those panels depend on the source codec, so a phone H.264 clip, a Blackmagic RAW clip, a still image and a Fusion composition won't show identical Inspector sections.
Audio, Effects, Transition, Image, and File Tabs
The Audio tab has two modes, picked from your selection. Click an audio clip for Clip mode: Volume, Pan, pitch, a six-band Equalizer, Dialogue Leveler and, in Studio, Voice Isolation. Click an audio track header for Track mode, home of track-only tools like the Ducker and Dialogue Separator. It still isn't the Fairlight Mixer; for one compressor or EQ across a dialogue track or bus, use Fairlight. The Fairlight audio hub separates clip, track and bus processing.
The Effects tab isn't an effects browser. It shows controls for Fusion, OpenFX or audio effects already applied to the selection and is dimmed when none apply.
Parameters, keyframes, blend options and resets depend on the applied effect. The Transition tab appears when you select the transition at an edit point and can hold duration, alignment, easing, border or style-specific options.
In the 21.1 manual, Image carries camera RAW parameters for supported raw formats, and File shows clip details and editable metadata such as start timecode, camera and reel. Blackmagic's official Cut page describes Effects as the home of applied-effect options; for where RAW controls live, go by the manual.
Titles, Generators, and Fusion Controls
Select a Text title and the Inspector changes to text content, font, size, color, alignment, spacing, layout and animation controls. Text+ and Fusion title templates expose whatever controls their creator published, so two title templates can look nothing alike. The Resolve text guide covers the difference between Text and Text+.
A Fusion composition can publish a compact set of controls to the Edit Inspector while the full node settings stay on the Fusion page. Select several Fusion titles and a Multiple Values toggle appears; mixed templates leave only their shared controls editable.
Resolve 21 also has a Multi-Inspector inside Fusion: select several tools in the Fusion node flow and it shows the controls they share, so one change lands on all of them. Blackmagic documents it in the final Resolve 21 Reference Manual. It isn't the same thing as the normal Edit-page Inspector.
Animate Inspector Controls with Keyframes
- Move the playhead to the first frame where the animation should be defined.
- Click the gray diamond beside the property. It turns orange whenever the playhead sits on a stored keyframe, and the left and right arrows jump to the previous or next keyframe.
- Move to a later frame.
- Change the value, and Resolve adds another keyframe for you.
- Open the clip's keyframe or curve editor to move points and shape the easing.
A gray diamond means there's no keyframe for that parameter at the playhead; orange means the playhead is sitting on one. Keyframes can still exist elsewhere in the clip, so use the previous and next arrows, or open the timeline Keyframe and Curve Editor, before retyping a value that keeps changing as you scrub.
Copy, Paste, and Reset Without Collateral Damage
Use Copy, then Paste Attributes (Option-V) when you want to transfer only Transform, Crop, Composite, audio or selected effects. Read every checkbox before you click Apply; a careless paste can copy speed, stabilization or audio changes along with the framing you wanted. For one value on several clips, select them all and change it once. The header reads Multiple Clips, and differing values show as two dashes.
Each Inspector section has its own reset arrow. Reset the smallest scope that's wrong: one property if you can, then a group, and only then the entire clip. If the result still won't return to normal, another system is involved, such as Color sizing, a Fusion node, an adjustment clip, a higher video layer or project scaling.
An adjustment clip deliberately affects everything visible below it, so check the upper tracks before you blame the selected source clip.
Resolve Free vs Studio
Core Inspector tabs, Transform, Crop, Dynamic Zoom, Composite, clip audio, standard keyframes, common stabilization and per-clip scaling are all available in Resolve Free. Confirmed Studio-only examples inside this panel include Smart Reframe, Lens Correction, Super Scale, Speed Warp, Voice Isolation, and individual Studio effects or AI tools.
The safe rule is contextual. The Inspector itself isn't a paid feature, but some tools displayed inside it are. If a control adds a Studio watermark or is unavailable, check the current feature list for that specific effect. Don't assume the whole panel is locked.
Fix Inspector Problems
The Inspector is blank
Click Inspector at the upper right, then select a compatible timeline item. If you clicked the clip in the Media Pool, you're editing the source, so click its instance in the timeline. On a narrow or full-screen laptop layout, widen the Inspector or leave full screen so controls at the right edge aren't simply cropped out.
A tab or control is missing
Select the object that owns it. Effects requires an already-applied effect, Transition needs a selected transition, and RAW controls need compatible media.
If the correct item and tab are selected and a template or plug-in panel is still blank, write down the Resolve build, edition, item type and package version. At that point you're dealing with a version- or template-specific defect, so don't go hunting for a universal reset fix.
The image jumps later in the clip
A keyframe may be sitting away from the current playhead. Use the previous and next arrows, then open the Keyframe or Curve Editor and check every animated property.
Reset does not restore the image
Bypass upper video tracks, adjustment clips, Color sizing, Fusion, and project or timeline scaling one layer at a time. The Inspector can only reset the controls it owns.
Changes affect the wrong clip
Check the timeline outline and the Inspector header before you change any values. That matters most with linked audio and video and with stacked tracks.
A clip is soft after scaling
Check Zoom, per-clip Scaling, timeline resolution, output resolution and the source dimensions. Stacked resizing can magnify a low-resolution source more than the Inspector value suggests.
Inspector Check Before Export
Scrub from the first frame of the clip to the last while you watch the Viewer and the gray or orange keyframe states. Expand Transform, Crop, Composite, Speed, Stabilization, Retime and Scaling, and Effects, then compare the clip with its effects bypassed. For audio, decide whether the change belongs on the clip or should live on its Fairlight track.
The Inspector stays readable when each system has one job. If Transform, Color sizing, Fusion and output scaling all correct the same frame, simplify that chain before you add another adjustment. For a clean split between node work and Inspector work, follow the beginner Color-page workflow.
In the DaVinci Resolve tutorial roadmap, the Inspector is an early stop, before adjustment clips, reframing, tracking and delivery.
DaVinci Resolve Inspector FAQ
Why is my Inspector empty?
Usually nothing compatible is selected in the timeline, or the panel is closed. Click Inspector at the upper right and select the clip, title, transition or effect again. If the values don't match your edit, you may have the Media Pool source selected instead of its timeline instance.
How do I reset one Inspector setting?
Click the circular reset arrow beside that property or section. Reset the smallest scope first so the rest of your work stays intact.
What does the diamond icon do?
It enables animation for that parameter and stores a keyframe at the current playhead position. Move to another frame and change the value, and Resolve animates between the two.
Why does the Inspector look different for every clip?
Because it's contextual. Video, audio, titles, transitions, generators, RAW media, Fusion compositions and effects each expose different properties.
Can I copy Inspector settings to another clip?
Yes. Copy the clip, use Paste Attributes and select only the categories you need. Check the target clip afterward for speed, audio, crop or effect changes you didn't want.
Is the Inspector available in Resolve Free?
Yes. The core Inspector is included in Resolve Free. Individual Studio-only effects, AI tools and advanced processing modes such as Speed Warp remain restricted.
