Hannie,
Marlene seemed to be struggling, what she saw as sensible brightness was not what was being seen on the image she posted.
As I said in the note to her, most monitors/computers as supplied are too bright and can lead to the whites being crushed. So what should be say 95% bright and above all appear to be white and are considered to be crushed. You get the same appearance by having the histogram hard against the right edge after adjusting brightness, in that case there is permanent damage.
If the problem is monitor crushing then it is impossible to see detail in the brightest areas and the whole image is probably brighter than it should be. The image is probably still OK buy trying to adjust it under these circumstances is risky.
The image I posted contains stepped gray scales, ranging between absolute white and absolute black. In theory you should be able to see all the steps but need to be in a darkened area to see the near blacks. I wasn't sure about Photo-bucket, saving it there has made some small changes in brightness but it is still worth trying.
If there is no difference between 2 or more of the steps gray approaching white it is likely that the brightness of the monitor is too high. Reducing the brightness of the monitor may allow you to see more of those steps. The 2% steps are more critical than the 5%
Like all computer things, there are lots of "it depends". I have assumed that Marlene is using an LCD monitor and the brightness can be adjusted but the first step was to see if that was the problem.
This site gives a better description of what to look for though I wouldn't suggest going beyond step 6
http://www.digitalmasters.com.au/Monitor_Calibration.htmlAthol
