ColorMod (move pivot)

ColorMod (move) brightens everything equally - which means brightening a dark image also pushes your highlights toward blown-out white. ColorMod (move pivot) fixes that with one idea: instead of shifting the whole image, it anchors the shift at a point you choose. Everything below the pivot moves proportionally less, so you can lift the shadows and leave the highlights (mostly) alone.

This is the node you want when an image is too dark in the bottom half and you're tired of the "brighten everything, then fight the blown highlights" dance. In photography terms it's a shadows-lift with a pivot, expressed as one slider.

How it works

Mechanically it remaps values above and below the pivot separately: below the pivot gets scaled toward it, above it gets scaled around it, and the whole thing can be clamped. The curve on the node's little visualization canvas shows the break - a straight diagonal that bends at the pivot point and pivots up or down as you move the move slider. Set the pivot at 0.5 and a positive move lifts the dark side while mid-gray (the pivot) barely budges and highlights stay put.

The inputs

• pivot (default 0.5, range 0.001–0.999) - where the curve anchors. 0.5 = middle gray. Lower it (e.g. 0.25) to protect only the deepest shadows; raise it to protect highlights.
• move (default 0.0, range −2 to 2) - how much the pivot side shifts. Note the wider range than plain ColorMod (move): this node is built for more aggressive lifting.
• clip (default True) - clamp to [0, 1]. Same story as the rest of the pack: on for VAE-safe SDR work, off when you're building HDR passes.
• image in, one IMAGE out.

Installing

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/city96/ComfyUI_ColorMod
cd ComfyUI_ColorMod
pip install -r requirements.txt

Restart, or install via ComfyUI Manager ("ComfyUI_ColorMod"). This node has no dependencies beyond the pack itself - pure PyTorch.

When to reach for it

• Shadow lift without highlight loss. The whole reason it exists. Dark image, raise move with pivot around 0.5, watch the visualization until the highlights stop moving.
• Creative grading. A pivot near 0.8 with a negative move darkens the scene but keeps bright elements from crushing.
• HDR pass generation. With clip off and a pivot below 0.5, you get passes where the shadows differ a lot and highlights barely change - a genuinely useful input set for Create HDR image.

The one thing to remember: pivot and move interact, and the visualization is your friend. Set the pivot first, then move, and read the line on the canvas instead of guessing blind. This is the most "editor-like" node in the pack, and once you've used it for a shadow lift you'll keep finding reasons to grab it.