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Peter,
Have you tried MaskedStretch? (as opposed to stretching with a mask.) You could blend the stars from a MaskedStretch with a HT stretched galaxy using a mask. It requires some mucking around but it is certainly possible.
Another option is to just reduce the bloated stars after the stretch. I have done this by creating masks for the larger stars/halos then using a little HT and/or Curves reduction. Smaller stars can be reduced with MT and a star mask.
If you push hard enough you might be able to find some colour in those blown out stars. A star mask and big saturation boost is worth a try. Blurring the chrominance of the stars a little with one of the wavelet tools (I typically use MMT) will also help colour up the cores. The new arcsinhstretch tool does a great job of keeping star colour too.
If you do decide to go the route of collecting some short subs then you can incorporate them using HDRComposition.
Hope that gives you a few ideas...
Cheers,
Rick.
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