Yes a nice improvement in contrast Alex and you have revealed the fainter nebulosity bewteen M20 and M8 better in the second. I like the overal hue of the Lagoon in the fist one though.
Looking foward to a break in the clouds in a week or so....oooor perhaps I revisit that Centaurus A shot .......just kidding
Speaking of that Centaurus shot.. I don't suppose theres any way someone could con you into sending it on a DVD is there? I would LOVE to have a play with that for a while just to see what I could get out of it..
Ide have to say im a fan of the original one, it just looks like you have really pushed the blue in the second one to bring up triffid blue more and done some really big contrast movement that has broght up some of the fainter stuff between m8/20 but lost some in other places. maybe some selective layer masking could give you the best of both worlds. apart from that the image is really nice !
Thanks brendan, I actually left a fair bit of room on the left of the blue histogram as I like the sky to have a blue hint to it. When I bring the levels back so that the RGB peaks line up, overall look is very different, I cant say whether its better or worse (colourblind...) but I kinda like it as is...
Mike - On the topic of the hue of M8, I actually adjusted the hue of the reds in this image to suit what is visually pleasing to my crazy eyes.. Maybe I'll do a V.3 image with the hue and saturation levels untouched to see if thats more natural to everyone else..
I'll probably be the party pooper in saying that I loved the first shot. The sidonio'ed is a bit too saturated to my taste. Nevertheless great framing and composition.
.......just kidding 
I'll probably be the party pooper in saying that I loved the first shot. The sidonio'ed is a bit too saturated to my taste. Nevertheless great framing and composition. 
