Thanks guys! And little wonder it takes me so long to put up a simple post. :D

I wanted to show the density distribution process but didn't have the graphics ready ... until now ...

Spaced Ranger said:

To test the effectiveness of this process, I also applied the correction to a blank background. The before and after range-spikes where expanded to full spectrum to easily observe their density distributions:

density distribution before density distribution after

The grey graphing is the actual luminance of the backgrounds and the red is from the narrow spike's min-max spread out across the full spectrum.
Paint program processing could've been better (for a flatter result) but it shows the concept working well enough. Avisynth, for the actual video processing, may do the internal math better or have better functions.

@ DarthAss - Most of these are performed on screen captures in a paint program (any one will do as most have the basic functions I use). Applying them to the actual video can be with Avisynth, a free, non-linear video/audio editor using scripts to direct it's processing -- http://avisynth.nl/index.php/Main_Page -- that many of us use. But other video editors, like your mentioned Vegas Pro, can do the same things.