Stack to compare Helicon and Affinity Photo

[lightshipman]

The first is 8 images stacked in Affinity Photo.

Untitled by Andrew Wright, on Flickr

The second is the same 8 images, stacked in Helicon, cropped square using Affinity. the main purpose of the exercise was to try and do a stack without the halo around the edges as in my last stack on here.
https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/first-attempt-using-helicon-focus.692097/

I didnt use a macro rail, just focussed at different points from front to rear of the image in very small increments, as evenly spaced as I could manage.

Untitled by Andrew Wright, on Flickr

 

[GardenersHelper]

Andrew, I think these two are the same photo. I downloaded the two from your Flickr photostream; they are exactly the same.

Unfortunately it does have halos around the edge, and also at least one (more difficult to see) internally. It's the same issue I've been battling with this afternoon with some crocus images. It is extremely frustrating.

 

[LongLensPhotography]

As an excercise you may be better of aligning layers in photoshop or whatever else and manually going through them. That way you choose what to expose and hopefully have more control.

I would personally quite happily take a single exposure at even f/2.8 if you like the look, or f/13 to have it all more in focus. It is OK if the back is a little soft, and it beats the halo every time.

Finally, it is 1 stop underexposed and background has magenta tint (should be grey??). These are the two things that really throw me off, but thats at least easy to fix.