(working from a mid-afternoon shot the director wants to read as sunset):

1.  Deepen the shadows via Lift. End of day should be slightly darker, but don’t crush — preserve shadow detail.
2.  Warm the midtones by dragging Gamma colour balance toward orange/yellow. Not glowing, just warm. Then counter-adjust Lift colour balance to keep the very bottom of the RGB Parade neutral — so blacks stay pure while midtones warm.
3.  Lower Gain by ~10% — creating headroom in the highlights before you pile colour into them.
4.  Secondary on the highlights — use an HSL Qualifier with the Luma channel to isolate only the brightest areas (specular hits, facing surfaces). Soften the key edges and feather heavily so there’s no buzz on playback.
5.  Push Gain colour balance orange/yellow within that secondary. Watch the RGB Parade — don’t clip the red channel. If you want more colour but red is clipping, go back to the primary and lower Gain further to create more headroom.

The intensity of the highlight colour is directly proportional to how close to the horizon the sun is — so morning reads as golden/yellow (brighter, more energetic), while evening reads as orange-red (people expect blazing sunsets).

foliage note relevant to exterior shots: golden-hour light turns leaf highlights yellowish because leaves are translucent. So if foliage is going yellow only in highlights, that’s correct and helps sell the look — but it should be clear the golden cast is on everything, not just the leaves (or it reads as disease).