Compression using brightness/contrast

[A_SN]

I know that some people use Photosounder for some aspects of mastering, so I was wondering, has anyone ever achieved any desirable compression-like effect (or other) using gamma/brightness/contrast/curves?

Years ago I used to think that using such effects on spectrograms could possibly give an interesting new take on the problem of compression, so that by reducing the contrast for example you could make quieter bits be louder. I never got anything desirable myself. I mostly tried with the gamma, which isn't really any good (except when you're designing sounds, but not so much as an effect on any test sound I tried, mostly not when they have a background noise), and shortly tried contrast but didn't obtain anything memorable.

I'm curious if anyone found any use for such effects. If so I might implement something like that in Photosounder. I was originally planning to do a fancy (Photoshop's) Curves-like thing, complete with lines and splines, but now I'm not sure it's worth it/would have any use.