Ravi firtly let me say I think the image is OK, but........you have gone to some considerable trouble to make this image and I would have thought there should have been rather more definition or detail. I am guessing the DOF required would have been 1cm max (?) If I am right I doubt very much you would have needed to stack 32 images. I don't profess to be an expert on stacking but sometimes I think the Finnish expression "less is more" is sometimes applicable.
I note there appears to be some definition in the petals towards the periphery of the image but much less so inwards, this could be due to a variety of things e.g. sharpening regime, subject movement camera movement etc, I suspect movement is unlikely otherwise you wouldn't have taken 32 images so I suspect sharpening and possibly processing, controlling luminosity in dense colours is quite critical. Hope this helps, I don't want to sound too negative, I don't think the image is "bad" - not at all but I do feel your efforts have not been justly rewarded.
Jonathan, I think you are quite right in what you said. I think I took way more than I needed. there was a bit of subject movement, so I took several duplicates and I didn't individually screen everyone of them for sharpness before stacking, so there may have been a few that were not in good focus. I didn't sharpen this image, so that is not an issue. I think stacking takes a good amount of care in capturing and screening of individual images for sharpness. I am beginning to appreciate the work involved in stacking as I am new to this. Your comments are helpful to identify the problems, so I can be a little more meticulous in capturing as well as selecting the images for stacking.
Thanks for all the comments. Here is the square one. I sharpened the center a bit. I am just beginning to experiment with stacking. Although I took several images over the past year for future stacking, I started with Zerene stacker only recently. These comments are helpful for me capture better and screening the appropriate images for stacking.
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