Brightness without pixeling
 

Hi!
I have filmed this multi-cam event and the two A1 cams differed significantly in brightness, due to one using gain, the other not. I wonder what the smoothest and most non-destructive way to higher/lower the brightness levels is. I work in Premiere Elements currently, and I would guess the filters that are there are more or less the same as in PPro (I've worked in PPro earlier). I have always experienced pixeling when applying brightness effects, both in P.El and Ppro.
The material is filmed in HDV but exported as DV to computer. Would AE or any plug-in filter do it better?
Thanks