Orion4D · Color Balance APP

Here's the grading move that separates "generated" from "graded": giving shadows and highlights different color casts. A single white-balance tweak shifts everything at once; a three-way balance lets you make the shadows cool and the highlights warm - the teal-and-orange recipe and half of cinema grading live in that one distinction. Orion4D_FXMax_ColorBalance (displayed "Orion4D · Color Balance APP") gives you the exact Lightroom/DaVinci three-way control in a ComfyUI node.

How it works

The node works on three tonal ranges independently - shadows, midtones, and highlights - each with the classic colorist sliders: cyan/red, magenta/green, yellow/blue. You pick the range you're adjusting (the adjust_type setting), move the color pair, and only that tonal band shifts. There's a preserve_luminosity toggle (defaults on) that keeps brightness stable while the color moves, which stops your nice balance from also changing exposure - that's the setting that makes this feel like a professional tool instead of a filter.

The preset names teach you the workflow: Warm Midtones (push warmth into the body of the image) and Cool Shadows (pull the dark end toward blue for that clean contrast). Neutral is the starting identity.

Inputs and outputs

Pack-standard schema:

• image - the IMAGE tensor.
• preset - Neutral, Warm Midtones, or Cool Shadows.
• raw_settings - "Embedded JSON settings used for workflow portability. Managed automatically by the APP."
• mask (optional) - grade only a region, useful for keeping a subject's skin neutral while the background gets the cast.

Outputs: image and mask.

Where it fits

This is your atmosphere node. When you want the image to say "golden hour" or "cold morning" rather than just "slightly warm," Color Balance is the tool. It pairs well with the pack's HSL for targeted range work - use HSL when you want to hit one color, Color Balance when you want to shape the whole tonal structure. It's also the friendlier alternative to the Matrix 3x3 node: same family of ideas, but organized around tone ranges instead of raw math.

Performance and install

A CPU/NumPy node, so instant on stills and a mild delay on video batches - the pack's README lists it in the "moderate" tier, which is accurate. Install:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/orion4d/Orion4D_FXMax.git
# restart ComfyUI

ComfyUI Manager search "Orion4D_FXMax" works too. No model downloads, Pillow-only.

Gotchas

The beginner trap is symmetry: adding blue to shadows and blue to highlights makes everything cold - the interesting look comes from opposite casts on opposite ends. And if your subject's skin tone shifts while you grade, that's not the node being broken, that's you hitting midtones - drop the strength or mask the subject. Use the Open APP split-screen before/after and trust your eyes over the numbers.