Adjusting the Contrast affects the white point, adjusting the Brightness affects the black point. So you won't hurt your whites by adjusting the brightness. Turn your contrast up until you begin to clip white, then turn it down a notch. Turn your brightness down until you begin to clip blacks, then turn it back up a notch. This is the maximum contrast of your panel. After setting contrast and brightness, you can adjust the backlight to compensate for ambient room light... lower it in a darkroom, raise it in a sunny room (if you have a backlight adjustment option)
If you are getting black washout (dark scenes washed-out by the panels minimum luminance) the tutorial outlined in the first post will fix it... it should also theoretically fix black crush (an overzealous backlight bleed compensation curve built into the panels electronics) by moving the black point in the other direction in the curve.
Check for white clipping with the tests below.
Are the red, green, and blue vertical stripes distinguishable from the thin horizontal white strip at the top?
How about now? (you may need to back away a little to see them)
If you can make out all three shades in both you're seeing all you are supposed to see.
