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First off wow, high impact image. You are getting better results out of the RCOS than I did. The original owner used an ST8XME as well with it.
Perhaps an AP 67 focal reducer could be useful sometimes as well to get a wider field of view and more bang for your imaging time buck so to speak. Probably would have been a nicer FOV for this object which is quite large.
Here's my take on the image:
1. Stars are to sharpened. I rarely sharpen a whole image as the unsharp mask tool is too savage and tends to damage stars. I usually find a bit of deconvolution on the luminance is good and perhaps even on the RGB subs. You want a softer look on your stars with slightly soft edges. Hard edges on stars is a bad look and isn't generally liked. Use selective sharpening using masks to do the core areas and nothing else. Ken Crawford has the leading tutorial on how to do deconv and sharpening. Google his name.
2. You can bring up the image a lot in curves as it seems there is plenty of signal there lurking in the background to be brought out so the dust lane is not so dark compared to the star halo of the galaxy.
3. Stars as you say have a reddish halo (red subs may need a tad of deconvolution to reduce star sizes - perhaps red was a tad out of focus or misaligned in processing?). There are techniques to get rid of star halos. But your general star colour needs to come up. Easiest and very effective is to use Noel Carboni actions. He has a increase star colour action that works like a charm.
4. The dust lane has 2 very pretty sections of bluish star forming areas and I don't see that blue there. Use the sponge tool and saturate 5% and bring that area up. Or lasso it, feather it and use curves to bring up the blue in the area.
Greg.
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