i though opacity too, but looking at the screencaps, you can see the "active" layer is set to 100% so i'm not sure what they mean. 

there is a "brightness/contrast" setting in the "adjustment layer"s but again, i don't see that in the screencaps.

can you email the author?? (didn't think to see the creation date of the tut!!!)

sorry
:(
retrocity