And suddenly summer...

I must say that I am literally overwhelmed by the speed with which the late spring turned into early summer! Virtually out of nowhere unfolded a plant and flower diversity that is breathtaking. I am deeply impressed by the diverse beauty of creation!

The Meadow bistort revealed itself practically overnight. The alternation between sunny and rainy days makes everything sprout.

In the meantime, meter-high plants already stand on the meadows.

A reminder of the late, cool spring is the still not completely melted snow.

A chaos of diverse blossoms provides a sweet fragrance in the air.

There was little to be seen of the daisies just a few days ago. Meanwhile, there is a whole sea of them.

I discovered this beautiful lilac because of the sweet scent the wind carried towards me. I only had to follow the scent to discover this magnificent specimen. Of course, I did not want to trample the beautiful meadow, so I hurried home to get my telephoto zoom.

The yellow poppy blooms only a few days. In this picture it has all three stages of the flower: buds, flowers and seed pods of the already faded ones.

The longer lens allows to isolate small beauties in the chaos of the meadows.

Thanks for looking. Please go here to see the entire series.

Best wishes,
Reto

Superb work as usual, Reto. You are so fortunate to live in such beautiful environs!

One question about your post-processing. On the last image, it looks like you selected the subject flowers and applied a little blurring to the background (to make the flowers stand out). I'm guessing this because of some slight halos (see below) that are visible if you zoom WAY in close -- but not noticeable when viewed like a normal person (which I'm not!).

Further guessing: If you used a layer mask to protect the subject, and if you used Gaussian Blur, that would explain the halos. If my guess is accurate, here's a tip: I discovered some years ago that such halos can be avoided by using Lens Blur (in Photoshop) rather than Gaussian Blur. LB recognizes the layer mask and blurs only the revealed areas; GB blurs everything regardless of the mask -- hence the halos.

In any case, I don't mean this as criticism. Your images are gorgeous, and as I said, the halos aren't noticeable when viewed at 100% or less.

EDIT: Just to illustrate, here is a comparison of background blurring done with a black layer mask on the blossom, white on the background.

Thank you very much, Peano! Of course you are right about everything you say about post-processing. I obviously wasn't paying close enough attention and should have done better.

I didn't use a Gaussian blur, but one of the "neural" filters in the PS beta version. I don't know the English name because I'm using the German version, but it must be something like "Depth Blur":

Thank you so much for your helpful suggestions! Of course I followed your advice and made a new version with the Lens Blur filter. It turned out better than my previous version. I replaced the original on my website and so you can see the new version in my original post.

One can also get better results with the Neural filter if one chooses the right settings. But there are cases like this where it is better to use the Lens Blur you suggested.

Thanks again for your effort and helpful tips.

Cheers,
Reto

Oh, yes, the new version is much improved ... nice work! I'm using an ancient version of Photoshop (CS6), so I don't have access to the neural filters or any of the other sophisticated new tools. The selection tools have been hugely improved. I really must upgrade my computer so I can get the latest version of Photoshop.

Looking forward to your next burst of beauties from Guarda!

Cheers,
David

Thanks, David! Yes, I think its worthwile to upgrade to the latest PS version. They have added many very useful tools.

Cheers,
Reto