Photoshop girl

I am often asked for photoshop guidance at work and outside of it. The thing I use the most is levels.... and often times I think that is what others are asking to use to "fix" their pictures... They're photos are too dark. There are tons of things you can do but here is a great start
http://www.webreference.com/graphics/elements/4.html
I don't use any "auto" options so here is what i found the most helpful from the above site.

1. Here is how I used Levels to make the bag look more attractive and saleable: I chose Enhance > Adjust Lighting > Levels. This opened the dialog box shown in Figure 2.9.
Figure 2.9: Levels graphically show the distribution of tonal values and provide a means to individually adjust shadows, midtones, or highlights.
2. Looking at the Levels histogram, I saw the problem. Most of the values were to the left, toward the shadow areas. I needed to spread the values across the spectrum and increase the contrast. To do this, I dragged the Input Levels white triangle (at the lower-right corner of the histogram) to the left, toward the edge of the tall black mound. As I did this, I saw the whites, or highlights, in my actual image lighten and the overall contrast increase. (Be sure you have selected the Preview check box in the Levels dialog box. With this option selected, any changes you make in the Levels dialog box will be shown in the actual image).
3. Next I adjusted the midtones by dragging the Input Levels gray triangle (found in the middle of the bottom edge of the histogram) to the right. This darkened and intensified the midtones. The numbers in the three boxes above the histogram represent numerically, in order, shadows, midtones, and highlight areas. As you move the triangle sliders, you’ll see these values change to reflect the new values. You can also enter numeric values into these boxes, but it’s a lot easier to manually slide the sliders.
4. At various points in the process, I found it useful to carefully examine the effects of my changes on detailed parts of the image. For example, when I adjusted the midtones, I wanted to make sure I didn’t lose any details in the gold embroidery. Even though the Levels dialog box was open, I could still use my navigation keyboard commands to magnify and scroll around the image. (This works only in Standard Edit, not in Quick Fix).
5. The shadow areas (again, represented in the left side of the histogram) looked fine, but I went ahead and moved the black triangle anyway. In Figure 2.10, you can see how I adjusted the Levels so that the shadow areas became too dark. At this point I could have slid the black triangle back to its original position, but I decided to start over completely and reset the image to its original state. To do this, I held down the Alt/Option key and clicked the Reset button in the Levels dialog box.