and curves, setting the Black under the stone & neutral on his snout (which was a bit blue), but leaving some of the blue because I reckoned it was a shadow tint (maybe I've left too much?). I then steepened the rgb master curve to contrast the fur a bit.
http://www.broadhurst-family.co.uk/CurveMeister/GrizzlyRGBbn+contrast.acv
Although his back side & top is not blown out, I 'feel' it is (on my monitor), maybe because I have given too much contrast to the fur?
I also felt this image needed a little more than curves to bring it out as it still looked a little washed out
so I applied 1 pixel of this amazing technique
http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?fs=true&docid=df7tj2cm_11ccskpm&skipauth=true
and then I added a Multiply & Screen layer with some gaussian blurring to loose some of the contrast I added and enrich the colours - thus...
