Brightening Dark Interiors

OK, maybe you don't have a fancy lighting rig and you don't have the time or inclination to teach yourself HDR photo techniques. That's no excuse for posting excessively dark interior listing photos like this:

At the very least, this unfortunate photo could have been brightened up with any of a variety of photo editing software tools, such as the ones that come bundled with cheap digital cameras. Or Picasa (free). Or Photoshop (complicated and expensive). Or Photoshop Elements (not so complicated, less expensive).

A simple brightness adjustment will not fix the blown-out window but can bring out much of the detail in the dark regions of the photo and greatly lightens the mood:

I'm not saying that increasing the brightness makes this a Good Listing Photo. It simply turns a Bad Listing Photo into one that lets you see the narrow corner of the room that the photographer settled for, instead of just seeing a window with curtains floating in a dark void.