Robby, Tony only said he'd appreciate some help. I'm not going to help him until he's ready to sell his 20Da
To be honest I don't really know what I did. Just mucking around with the levels and curves, both rgb and red, in small increments and switching back and forwards between to two adjument options.
I've been wondering about that (AN and SM) since I've had the AN. Unfortunately I'm still waiting to for enough decent nights when its either not cloudy or not full moon to use the thing. I'm slowly getting there as long as I use the Exact Gem setting, but having probs with the rough align setting with the Set Alt Ref??? Where do I point the damn scope when setting it?
Sorry for hijacking Tony.
Back on Topic.
Tony after I opened the original in PS I cropped to remove any obvious stacking artifacts. Then using levels adjustment, raised the leftmost slider to under the left edge of the histogram and lower the far right pointer back to about a quarter the way to the histogram edge on the right. I try to keep the middle slider sort of midway between the other two. Maybe a bit more towards the right one if anything. I then go into curves and slightly adjust the upper portion of the curves line to bring out more detail of the nebula then do the same in the Red curves section. Then back to the levels. I don't use any set routine or pattern, just what looks good to me atm. Not very scientific I know, but I'm only 6 months ahead of you remember.
I feel that part of the secret is numerous little adjustments, rather than big steps.
Hope that's helped