Dead Pixel Fix in DaVinci Resolve

If you are seeing a fixed bright dot in your footage and are not sure whether it is a sensor pixel defect or a display defect on your editing monitor, verify which it is before editing. Before fixing in post, it's worth trying our free try fixing stuck pixels on your screen first — sometimes the pixel recovers and you won't need to mask it in every clip. If the dot only appears in exported footage (not on your monitor), the defect is in the camera sensor, not your display.

Before opening Resolve, find the exact pixel position of the dead pixel in your footage. Play a clip and pause on a frame where the dead pixel is clearly visible (easiest on a bright, light-coloured area of the image). Import the frame into Photoshop or Preview (macOS) and use the eyedropper or info panel to read the exact X and Y coordinates of the defect.

On a 4K (3840×2160) sensor, a dead pixel at position (1920, 1080) is exactly centred. Note the coordinates — you will enter them in the Resolve node.

DaVinci Resolve 18 introduced the Dust Busting node in the Color page, designed specifically to remove fixed sensor defects from footage. This is the recommended method for dead pixel davinci resolve work.

1. Open your timeline in Resolve and select the clip in the Color page.
2. Right-click in the node graph and select Add Node > Add Dust Busting. The node appears as “DB” in the graph.
3. In the Dust Busting node settings panel (Inspector), click Add Defect. A crosshair appears on the viewer.
4. Click directly on the dead pixel in the viewer to place the fix point. The node records the X/Y coordinates and interpolates from surrounding pixels to mask the defect.
5. Set the Radius to just cover the defective pixel — typically 1–3 pixels radius. A larger radius may blur fine detail nearby.
6. Play through the clip to verify the fix holds. Sensor dead pixels are in a fixed position in every frame, so the Dust Busting node covers them without tracking.

You can add multiple fix points in the same node for multiple dead pixels.

For DaVinci Resolve 17 or earlier, use the Fusion tab to mask the dead pixel manually. This dead pixel fixer davinci resolve approach works on any Resolve version:

1. Right-click your clip in the Edit page and select New Fusion Clip.
2. In the Fusion tab, your clip appears as a MediaIn node. Add a Paint node(Tools > Paint) after MediaIn.
3. In the Paint node, select the Clone brush. Set the brush size to 3–5 pixels.
4. Hold Ctrl and click on a clean area of the image near the dead pixel to set the clone source.
5. Click on the dead pixel to paint the clone over it. The fix applies to every frame automatically because sensor dead pixels are in a fixed position.
6. Connect the Paint node output to a MediaOut node to complete the composition.

If you have multiple clips from the same camera with the same dead pixel, you do not need to fix each clip individually. In the Color page:

1. Fix the dead pixel on one clip using the Dust Busting node (Method 1 above).
2. Right-click that clip in the Color page timeline and select Grab Still.
3. In the Gallery panel, right-click the grabbed still and select Apply Grade, then select the clips you want to apply it to.

For Fusion-based fixes, use a Shared Macro: save the Paint node settings as a macro (Tools > Macros > Create Macro) and apply it to each Fusion composition. This is faster than recreating the clone settings per clip.

For video editors using fix dead pixel davinci resolve workflows across large projects, applying the Dust Busting grade via the gallery is the most efficient method.

The Dust Busting node adds minimal processing overhead — it is a simple spatial interpolation on a tiny area of the frame. Render times are not meaningfully affected. For the Fusion Paint method, render times increase slightly on complex Fusion compositions. Use optimised media (Project Settings > Optimised Media) during editing and switch to the original camera files for final render to preserve full quality.