You may have read our recent profile of Flickr member Josh Malik, a conceptual photographer based in Los Angeles. We asked him to share the secrets behind the magic of one of his photos, which he graciously agreed to do in the video below. In it, he details the steps he took over 60 hours to make “The Lady and The Last Flower,” a haunting surrealist portrait.

As noted in Josh’s profile, he taught himself how to use expert processing software like Photoshop only two years ago. “At the beginning, trying to create fine art photos, or even do basic editing in Adobe Photoshop can be quite overwhelming,” he says. “When I first started, it was super difficult to figure out the keys, functions, and just the overall process in this immense program. After some time writing down what each key did, the thoughts of editing seemed a little less stressful.”

Among the tips he details in his post, he says “All of the tools that were used while creating this edit was curves (adjusting overall tones with focus on red/cyan, blue/yellow, and green/magenta), gradient maps (changes highlights and shadows), and then selective color. A very important habit to get into is editing using the layer mask method opposed to editing directly. The layer masks are located at the bottom of the right side next to creating a group.”

For those who think it’s too intimidating to get started on such complex work, Josh believes in you and your untapped potential: “With persistence and integrating the colors you love into the images that are being created, your style will develop and the creations will be direct links to your imagination. Happy creating!”