How to use overlays in Premiere, Resolve and Final Cut

When you plan to colour grade, or your footage is 10-bit or log, don't burn the overlays in. Export them alone and lay them over your original.

The steps

1. In the Export panel, choose Overlays only.
2. Export. You get a MOV with a transparent background, the same length as your clip or range.
3. Import it into your editor and put it on the track above your footage.
4. Line up the start of both clips. They match frame for frame.

Good to know

The file uses the PNG video codec, which keeps transparency without quality loss. It's larger than a normal video for its length, but small for what it is, because repeated frames share one image.