Let me show you what I was talking about :

Here is the SAME IMAGE reprocessed with OSC RGB Processing,

See the difference? I know it's subtle, but if you look hard enough you can see the difference! The Vertical Black Lines are from using Nebulosity's Trial version. After I proved to myself that Nebulosity worked...I purchased it.

You don't need to buy special filters, your OSC already captures the RGB channels! Here are the steps to break down your OSC image, and re-assemble into a well balanced color image:

Quick Start Summary Steps:
Take a OSC image, break it down to RGB channels in Nebulosity, and then re-assemble in Photoshop with the Fits liberator.

Step by Step Instructions:
I use Nebulosity to OPEN a STACKED COLOR IMAGE, and in Nebulosity there is FILE-->SAVE COLOR COMPONENTS. This will break your COLOR FITS file into THREE fits files...Red, Green, and Blue.

Next step in Photoshop/Fits Liberator...open each RGB fits file. The first thing that opens in Photoshop when you open a fits file is the FITS Liberator plugin.

From Fits Liberator do the following:
1) Open file.
2) In the Fits Liberator, under the "Preview Image" you will see a black, and white slide knobs...Slide the BLACK all the way to the LEFT in the "BLACK LEVEL" box type 0, and SLIDE the WHITE all the way to the RIGHT.
3) Next, in the "WHITE LEVEL" box type 65535 (That is the maximum white value. This ensures you lose no data.)
4) Next, under the "SCALING AND STRETCH (ADVANCED)" area, change the "STRETCH FUNCTION" to "ARCSINH(X)".
5) Last part in FITS LIBERATOR click "AUTO SCALING".
6) Repeat, do this for each RED, GREEN, and BLUE files, after your done you should have THREE opened files in Photoshop.
7) Now assemble the RGB layers into one image in Photoshop.
8) Select the RED file and CTL + A (Select ALL), and next CTL + C (Copy)
9) Then in Photoshop FILE-->NEW-->Under COLOR MODE select "RGB COLOR".
10) Still in Photoshop now select the "CHANNELS TAB" you will see RGB, RED, GREEN, and BLUE. Now CLICK on the RED CHANNEL and CTRL + V (Paste) the Red Channel into the red layer.
11) Repeat Steps 8 and 10 for Green, and Blue in the new RGB color file you created in step 9.

Now you have a well balanced color image. Use Curves, and Levels to bring out the details. Watch your histograms, and try not to clip your data.

The final results are an image with NO DATA LOSS, and A well stretch image with great color.

Doug

I hope this tutorial was helpful, and if anyone knows a better way…please share!