Strange Beauty

At first I thought I had discovered a new (to us) plant that was yet to flower and in a way it is, just not until next year. I was duly informed these are the seed pods of penstemon flowers that emerged earlier in the year. Presumably they will grace us with more blooms next year.

Despite not having the delicate beauty of the flower, the seed pods have a beauty of their own, with rich red browns, shiny spotted surface and  pear shaped with a pointy tip.

I decided to investigate focus stacking in more detail. I tried the auto blend in PS with 6 frames, but too many artifacts emerged. Then Helicon Focus which produced ghosting. I manually blended in PS, which took a long time. In the end I went with a single frame at f16. Obviously I need a better solution.