  Multiorbital correlated materials are often on the verge of multiple
electronic phases (metallic, insulating, super- conducting, charge and
orbitally ordered), which can be explored and controlled by small changes of
the external parameters. The use of ultrashort light pulses as a mean to
transiently modify the band population is leading to fundamentally new results.
In this paper we will review recent advances in the field and we will discuss
the pos- sibility of manipulating the orbital polarization in correlated
multi-band solid state systems. This technique can provide new understanding of
the ground state properties of many interesting classes of quantum materials
and offers a new tool to induce transient emergent properties with no
counterpart at equilibrium. We will address: the discovery of high-energy
Mottness in superconducting copper oxides and its impact on our understanding
of the cuprate phase diagram; the instability of the Mott insulating phase in
photoexcited vanadium oxides; the manipulation of orbital-selective
correlations in iron-based superconductors; the pumping of local electronic
excitons and the consequent transient effective quasiparticle cooling in
alkali-doped fullerides. Finally, we will discuss a novel route to manipulate
the orbital polarization in a a k-resolved fashion.
