I found a detailed comparison between Affinity and Photoshop at
Affinity Photo vs Photoshop 2020: which should you choose? and based on that I don't think Affinity will give me the simplicity I was wanting. From the website:
------------------------------------------------------------
"You cannot open multiple images as layers in Affinity Photo. If you need to open multiple images as layers you need to do this manually, by opening all of the images and copy the layers each image into a single image with all the layers."
-----------------
"Affinity Photo Focus Stacking and Panorama Stitching Could Be Improved
From a macro photographer’s viewpoint, focus stacking could be improved, as it is not quite up to speed. For instance, Affinity Photo doesn’t show the layer masks and which part from each layer was used to create the focus stack, but only outputs the resulting layer. So you cannot easily finish the blend yourself.
The panorama feature suffers from the same failure to show a layer mask of which part of each image layer was used to create the panorama, so you can add finishing touches to the panorama stitching yourself. You have to do this in the stitching process and cannot edit it after you applied the Panorama stitch to a pixel layer.
I must admit though that the initial panorama results that Affinity Photo outputs, is often much better than the results I got from Photoshop."
---------- Post added 08-24-20 at 11:22 AM ----------
So I kept searching and I think I have found the answer. There is a focus stacking software program called Helicon Focus 7 that can focus stack unlimited layers by either of three different methods and even allow touching up or masking areas where there might have been movement of the subject. It also includes the ability to insert a scale which would be helpful to me for my detailed scientific botanical photos. They have a 30 day fully functional free trial after you download, and then you can decide whether to buy a license from one of three different versions, depending on your needs, in either a one-year subscription or lifetime and the price is reasonable.
I downloaded it and tried a few photos that I already had on the computer at multiple focus points, and it seems to work great. I will keep trying it for the thirty days and then decide whether and what version to buy. They even have a fancy extension tube that fits in front of the camera and will automate the focus bracketing if you don't want to have to take different shots at different focus points yourself. Unfortunately they have this for Canon and Nikon - not Pentax.
Helicon Focus - Helicon Soft 
Originally posted by damianc 
. I was just hoping for something like I had in my old compact Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX10, which worked great for in camera focus stacking. I had forgotten that the wi-fi only works in single frame shooting, and trying to manually refocus during the intervals was impossible without at least a small amount of camera movement, even with a good tripod. Then when the shots finally did stitch together in the camera, there was nothing to remove the out-of-focus regions (of course, how stupid of me). So the results were really weird - like all the edges were blurred and only areas that were in focus in each of the interval shots were in focus in the final merged photo. There might be some situation where that would be desired, but I am sure there are better ways.
Post #9 by Selvadero
Similar Threads 
