Photoshop :: Merging A Stacked Layer Set

I just completed a procedure to merge five images, taken with manual focus at evenly spaced distance intervals, to increase depth of field (DOF). There are two issues1. Procedure appears to create halos around items of contrasting colors, amounting to about 50 px in thickness. See Halos.jpg, attached.2. The image is of a daylily having abundant texture on its petals. Near the border of the composite, running parallel to the border, are ~200-px bands of pure color, i.e., washed-out areas, containing pure, featureless color, where there should be texture. Please see defocusbands01.jpg and defocusbands02.jpg, attached Further details: Photos were made with Leica DMR 10 Mpx sensor. Merged image is 3939 x 2627 px. in size. Extended DOF procedure was as follows:  
a. Open 5 raw (DNG) images in ACR | open images (in Photoshop editor); 

b. File | Scripts | Load files into stack | Attempt to Automatically Align Source Images; 

c. Layers | Select all; 

d. Edit | Auto-blend Layers | Stack Images | Seamless tones and Colors; 

e. Flatten and save output file as PSD.