With current rebellion Against Adobe’s subscription model, people are taking Blackmagic Design seriously DaVinci Resolve Studio. And many like what they see. It is more powerful than Adobe’s Premiere Pro and offers better color correction tools along with built-in effects and audio programs. Best of all, it’s free (although you can pay $300 to upgrade to the Studio version).
Blackmagic to make it more practical for those editing on the go introduced the iPad version Late 2022 with Clip (edit) and Color pages, but no effects or audio apps. The idea was to offer creators a way to edit or color correct everything on the go by syncing it through Blackmagic Cloud. It was also a good choice for those who prefer to work on mobile devices.
Earlier this year, Blackmagic introduced the $509 Micro Color Panel, which gives users like highly paid Hollywood colorists touch control for color correction. Even better, it can be used with Resolve on the iPad, so you can precisely click, stack, and roll instead of imprecisely pawing at the touchscreen.
I love control surfacesso I was eager to try the Micro Color Panel with me iPad Air M2 to see how they work together. At the same time, I wanted to try out Blackmagic’s Cloud for sharing projects across multiple devices.
You get two installations with DaVinci Resolve Studio, so I used my desktop dongle to install it on my iPad Air M2. Blackmagic recommends an iPad with an M1 or newer processor, and while it will work with earlier iPads, you may be limited to HD and features may be limited.
Blackmagic gave me a free trial of their Cloud service so I could transfer projects from my desktop to my iPad. It usually costs $5 per month for the library, which gives you 500GB of storage and unlimited projects that can be shared with up to 10 collaborators.
You can easily share graphics, effects, metadata and media. To transfer files, you can either plug in a USB-C drive or share full or proxy media (smaller versions of your video clips) to Blackmagic Cloud. It requires a fast connection to both upload and download, but once that’s done, they live locally on your iPad. Any new media files are automatically synced to the Cloud.
The downside of DaVinci Resolve on the iPad is the clunky touch-based interface, especially for color correction – but that’s where the Micro Color Panel comes into play. Blackmagic has a rich history. establishment of such supervisors for professional use, but the new model is the smallest and cheapest to date.
Although smaller than the $859 version, the new Micro Panel still maintains its quality. Its black finish could pick up some dust, but otherwise looks professional. The buttons light up to help you find them in a dark studio, but the labels on the dials don’t, so they can be hard to read.
The panel comes with its own battery that gives you about 15 hours of charge. While you can use USB-C to connect to PCs or Macs, iPads only support Bluetooth, with USB-C reserved for charging.
After connecting the Micro Control Panel to your iPad, you need to enable it in DaVinci Resolve’s options. Then you can slide the iPad into the slot on the back and you’re ready to go.
To be clear, the Micro Control Panel is not meant for editing – it’s strictly for color correction. To that end, it mirrors DaVinci Resolve’s Color Page interface. The main controls are for Lift (black levels), Gamma (contrast) and Gain (overall brightness).
Compared to these wheels and dials, good levels of resistance and accuracy are offered Loupedeck+ and other control surfaces I’ve tried. They’re used for things like shadows, highlights, and saturation, while buttons let you view the image full screen, move from clip to clip, add keyframes, and more. allows
The touch experience is a strong selling point of the Micro Control Panel, but there’s a catch-22 using it with the iPad. I would use it with a PC or Mac for more speed and versatility at home. I’m not sure I’ll take the Micro Control Panel with me when I’m on the go with my iPad, as it’s just too big.
Although Blackmagic is marketing this as an iPad accessory, I’d say it’s better for desktop DaVinci Resolve Studio users who want more touch control. It’s great for people who only edit on an iPad, but I’d imagine there’s only a small overlap in the Venn diagram between those people and those willing to spend $508 on a color correction panel.
Overall, Blackmagic’s Micro Color Panel is portable, attractive, well-designed, easy to use, and reasonably priced. If you spend a lot of time doing color correction, you’ll find it saves time once the controls become second nature. It will also make your editing suite look more professional.
While it’s still not a great match for the iPad, that could change. Apple recently introduced the iPad Pro M4, including a 13-inch model that offers performance similar to many MacBooks. At the same time, Blackmagic Design promised to make the iPad version of DaVinci Resolve more compatible with the desktop versions. If this happens, many Resolve users may choose to only use the iPad version – making the Micro Color Panel more desirable.
