# DaVinci Resolve Photo Editor

23 Hacker News commenters recommended DaVinci Resolve Photo Editor and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 1 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Photo editing inside DaVinci Resolve with color grading and library tools, a subscription-free alternative to Adobe. Caveat: critics say it feels built for video editors, not photographers.

## Why people recommend it

- Avoids Adobe subscription fees (4 comments): "One more piece of software that makes the world less reliable on A*be's expensive subscription fee based software" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764960)) "anything that takes market from Adobe and their shit licensing is good news" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764556)) "lets me process everything properly, skip the monthly subscription" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47760893))
- Video editing tools work on photos (4 comments): "it all just applies to photos too. I tried today some basic Magic Mask and color tab editing with photos, and it works exactly the same" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764617)) "I've edited stills in Resolve for years thinking this day would come" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47761226)) "DaVinci handles a lot of things better than LR from the start." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47768001))
- Praise for Blackmagic Design (3 comments): "regardless I'm a happy user of Davinci Resolve and this is amazing!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47761286)) "I really like what BMD is doing." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47761855)) "This is really awesome news." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47772071))

## What people warn about

- Feels built for video editors (3 comments): "It feels very much like video editing software with photo editing tacked on." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764175)) "It doesn't appear to attempt to target photographers who are not coming from a video editing background, and photographers will probably be disappointed." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764266)) "I personally didn't like the new Photo mode because it's clearly intended for video editors and not photographers at all" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47763496))
- Poor color rendering on raw files (2 comments): "Neat that they try to support JXL compressed raws but colors render very off." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47767697)) "The Sony RAW file rendered terrible compared to Lightroom." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47762671))
- Freezes or lags on some machines (2 comments): "no discrete GPU which might have been the issue" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47770350)) "so far it's been frozen for 8 minutes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47762372))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Photopea](https://hackerapproved.com/p/photopea.md): 84 recommend
- [Adobe Lightroom](https://hackerapproved.com/p/adobe-lightroom.md): 68 recommend
- [Pixelmator Pro](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pixelmator-pro.md): 29 recommend
- [PhotoCraft](https://hackerapproved.com/p/photocraft.md): 22 recommend
- [DxO PhotoLab](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dxo-photolab.md): 12 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "DaVinci Resolve Photo Editor", https://hackerapproved.com/p/davinci-resolve-photo-editor/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).