Photos shot with Nikon D5100 and Sigma 105mm f/2.8 macro lens in my garden in July 2018. The focus depth is much too shallow to capture the whole thistle at once. Therefore I tried focus stacking.

The focus was manually changed slightly, while taking photos continuous without a stand. All photos differ therefore slightly in positions.

Previously I was using Helicon Focus for stacking, but I often had strange artifacts in the result. Now I am using Adobe Photoshop for stacking. The stacking process is described on these sites: