Been a long time since posting here. This image of Antares and the Rho Oph complex was acquired with a cooled DSLR.
It has been processed in Pixinsight's BatchPreprocessing script (with a few tweaks) and without further manipulation imported to StarTools for post processing.
I used the RC version of StarTools to take advantage of a number of new features. Primarily, Color constancy and read noise compensation.
The workflow was basic. The image size was first reduced to 50%, near its intended display size. Followed up with Crop, Develop, Wipe, Develop (restretch after gradient removal), HDR, Life (masked to isolate nebulous areas), Color, Noise reduction and Sharpen (wavelets).
From the processing log - color choice
Parameter [Style] set to [Scientific (Color Constancy)]
Parameter [LRGB Method Emulation] set to [RGB Ratio, CIELab Luminance Retention]
I found these settings produced the look I was after.
Anyway, here 'tis
http://www.astrobin.com/full/88324/B/
Looks OK on my tablet. It might look overdone on some monitors. I had access to my laptop only, for processing...