Play with the levels fx to raise the brightness a little.

You could also place a color curve fx, right-click in the center of the diagonal line, create point. Then drag the top handle of the new point to the right slightly, not too much (view on monitor to see what you're getting). This flattens the contrast a little and should help. You could also drag the handle at the bottom of the original diagonal line to bring out shadows. Don't try to make it look like it was all shot in even light or you'll overdue it. Subtle is best as I've learned the hard way.

And read Billy Boy's tutorials as Tor said. This is where I learned.

Right... brightness/contrast filter: bad. Color Curves: good. I'm just parroting what Russell Brown (A Photoshop Guru and part of that product's development team) said years ago. He was right. <wink>

I'm trying to remember the name of the show he was a guest on a lot. The guy that authored a lot of Photoshop books, Deke McClelland I think was host. Russell Brown would put these super thick glasses on and make jokes about people that used contrast/brigtness, then he would go into a speal about how to use curves instead. On one show Russell being part of the Photoshop development team admitted they threw in a contrast/brightness filter just to please people that didn't know any better. He went on to say no self-respecting professional would be caught dead using that filter over curves. Of course you had to see the shows. Russell Brown while he knew his stuff was also a practial joker always clowning around a lot, maybe that's why I listened to him. I don't take life too seriously either.