thanx for all the response! Im posting a longer explaination in a few minutes with a better example. For now, here's a more 'accurate' correction done in 30 seconds with one curve and no masks. My original intent was not to produce accurate color, but to illustrate the ability of lab to do that which rgb cannot. Mainly, to overexposed image without washing out all the color. (I dare any of you to take the original and try and produce my end result with rgb!) The red and blue colors were intentionally defeated because i felt they distracted the viewer from the primary focus... the woman. With 'accurate' color, i felt that the photo was way too busy. But that's just my opinion and we all know that there are no aesthetic absolutes! Please take a minute or two and take a look at my other pics to get an idea of what i'm after...

And thanks so much Alpha for defining lab in a way that i have to remember the next time i try and explain it. Please tell me that wasnt just 'off the top of your head!'

btw, image was scanned on a nikon 4000 with some incorrect colorsync settings. It blasted out my highlights and gave me some weird saturation issues.