I've always stayed away from the Brightness/Contrast adjustment because it's too big and blunt of a tool for what I need to do.

Give this a try - at the bottom of the Layers palette, click on the "create Adjustment Layer" icon (the circle split down the center - black and white), and create a Levels Adjustment Layer. Adjust to taste, then click OK (or hit Enter on the keyboard). You now have something you can tweak AGAIN, that won't actually commit any changes until you flatten (or merge that with the layer below it), and has a mask built-in so you can paint BLACK to hide what you did NOT want changed.

You can use it to make the whites brighter, the darks darker, or adjust only midtones - clip whites or blacks, or a little of everything.

This also goes for creating ANY adjustment Layer in the list - Curves, Hue/Sat, etc.

Gotta admit - I'm more like the guy who wrote the article - I found the Brightness/Contrast adjustment too limited in use, and too harsh in application, so I just dropped even thinking of using it. Might give it another chance now that it's function has been changed a little in CS3...

Hope this helps-
-Lew ;-)