Dark nebulae in rich star field

[Phisci]

Samsung NX500 DSLR; 2hour stack of 2min subs. Used gregbradleys smaller field as a reference but could not quite replicate his overall palette.

[Geoff45]

That’s good Ryan. The colour looks good. That part of the Milky Way is full of dust and gas and the brownish stars seem pretty accurate to me. Only obvious problem is what’s happening around the bright blue stars—doesn’t look right.
Geoff

[gregbradley]

Looks good Ryan. The ring around the bright star -is that a result of trying to dim down that star?
Greg.

[Phisci]

Thanks for the feedback Geoff.
Greg I'm not really sure-most of my efforts that changed the star colour were focused on replicating your image so I might have mis-stepped along the way.