First, I recommend to read
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 557#102557 and the remainder of that thread, "What causes halo?"
You mention that "
It can be difficult to find individual images that actually contain an clear view of those elements that are masked by the bluring".
That's true, and often it's because no such images exist. When the lens is focused on the background areas that are laterally close to foreground areas, what the lens inevitably sees is some weighted average of focused background and unfocused foreground, like the diagram at
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 042#135042. You get a clear shot of the background only when the foreground is dark enough that it contributes negligible light, and even then the background gets significantly darkened next to the foreground edge.
Normally the best approach -- still not perfect because the camera never did see what you would really like -- is to retouch the DMap output from a PMax output. This is discussed in the "How To Use DMap" tutorial at the top of the section titled "Dealing With DMap's Limitations", direct URL
https://zerenesystems.com/cms/stacker/d ... imitations .
I hope this helps!
--Rik