Color Grading (Single)

Let's get the name out of the way: Color Grading does not touch a pixel. There's no LUT, no post-processing node here - it's a prompt dimension, like every other node in Variationator. Twenty color-palette descriptions (warm golden, teal-and-turquoise, steel blue, desaturated, vibrant, cinematic) get appended to your base prompt by ID, and the sampler is what does the grading. Set expectations accordingly and it's genuinely useful; expect DaVinci Resolve and you'll be annoyed.

The modifiers are organized into warm and cool camps. 1–4 are warm: "warm golden tones, amber highlights, sunset palette," "rich orange glow, copper accents," "subtle warmth, honey tones," "intense heat palette, fiery tones." 5–8 are cool: "cool blue tones, cyan shadows, winter palette," "teal and turquoise, aquatic colors," "steel blue grading, metallic cool," "deep cool shadows, indigo depths." The upper range covers the rest - desaturated, muted, vibrant, cinematic, black-and-white-style treatments. The format is the pack's usual multi-clause phrase, so {base}, warm golden tones, amber highlights, sunset palette reads naturally to any encoder.

The inputs: text (base prompt), modifier_id (1–20, default 7), and preserve_base (default true). Output: single STRING, modified_prompt. Same shape as every single-modifier node.

Install is the pack-standard zero-dependency story: ComfyUI Manager → search "Variationator" → install → restart, or cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes && git clone https://github.com/MushroomFleet/ComfyUI-Variationator.git. No models, no requirements.txt to install (the repo's install-portable.bat references one that isn't shipped). It lives under Prompt Orchestration.

My take on when this node earns its place: color vocabulary is one of the strongest levers on tag-based models, and "warm golden tones" or "teal and turquoise" can flip a render's mood faster than almost any other dimension. The README's own product-photography advice leans on warm/cool choices to separate commercial looks. Where it underdelivers: on models that are weak on color-science vocabulary, and whenever you're after precise grading - words can't guarantee a specific hex value, and chaining "warm golden" with "rich orange glow" just repeats the same idea instead of intensifying it. One palette entry per prompt is the rule; the pack's "don't over-modify" advice applies here harder than anywhere, because two competing palettes genuinely cancel out. If you actually need pixel-level control, that's a post-processing node's job - this one just writes the brief.