Is anyone else having trouble with the P6 lighting being too bright. I've used lighting sets from P5 in P6 and they are always too light and I can't seem to darkend them. Any hints? Thanks

The problem that I get (in both P5 and P6) is that the rendered light bears little resemblence to the lighting in the preview. This means that when the lights are set up as you think you want them, you get a totally different effect in your finished piece.

Yeah that sucks too.

It is worth checking your monitor settings. It doesn't need to be a full colour-matching, but brightness (for black level) and contrast (to set the white level) can make a huge difference. Preview lighting is done quick'n'dirty; maybe you start to pick up on the relationship with time, much as a photographer learns how a particular film behaves.

Actually, the only occasions I've had rendered lighting being brighter is when I've used ambient occlusion

Every light has an intensity level. If you lower this value, the light will become increasingly dim. This will, however, affect both diffuse and specular properties of each light at the same time. So, what I prefer to do is to go into the material room, and lower the diffuse color value for the light if it's too bright in my scene. For instance, if the diffuse color of your light is pure white, try lowering it to a light grey. This allows the light to maintain nice specular highlights, while reducing it's intensity on the diffuse (color) channels of each material. You can play with the diffuse and specular color/intensity on all the types of lights in P6 independantly through the material room, which provides great control over how they react with materials in the scene.