I thought this might make an interesting subject for the artists here to work on. The dog is so obviously devoted to her master. The second is my attempt at a color drawing. I have difficulty in drawing out the dog's eyes, since her face is black. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Shari

I think it is a great subject to do some art work on and yes that does look like love in those eyes
I selected the black area on the face applied a feather of 20 and then lightened a bit with levels, then selected the eyes and used the sponge tool for a bit of extra saturation and a little bit of dodge, It did look better but then i went and used the ahb and a sketch layer ( trying Mike warrens new sketch action (well worth a try from atncentral)):)

Palms

Some play with Impressionist again; did something different with the preprocessing though using Flaming Pear's Pixel Trash filter. :)

Here (http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/3889/towelhf2.jpg)'s the complete rendering (attached is a lower quality crop). :)

Since her left eye looked good (had 'sparkle') and she was pretty much looking at the camera, one possibility would be to:
* Use Lasso to select around left eye
* Ctrl + J - layer via copy
* Ctrl + T - free transform
* Right-click inside rectangle and choose 'Flip Horizontal'
* Drag / position over R eye and press Enter to accept
* Add layer mask and airbrush with black on mask to blend it in. See left side
* Levels or curves adjustment layer and lighten image overall
* Ctrl + I to invert mask
* Airbrush on the adjustment layer mask around eyes with white this time to apply the lighten effect on them only

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While I understand the reason for the man's arm in the pic, it was distracting to me, so I removed it! :)

Impressionist plugin for the arty effect.

Good job on the arm removal Danny, both in idea and excecution the dog looks more appealing without it :)

Palms

Wow, thanks for the completely different ideas.
Palms, I absolutely love what you did, especially with the background. It really makes the dog stand out. Not having Photoshop, I don't have access to the art history brush, but can see from your work, that it will do wonders with a talented user.
Lkroll-Very different. I can't wait to see how it will look printed.
Danny-Thanks for your detailed explanation of what to do with the eyes. I never though of that. Your removal of the arm is perfect. Without the original picture, no one would have suspected it was ever there.
Shari