[acedrew]

The small white spot you are referring to is a pushpin to denote the spot where you have started an edit. The adjustment brush is simply a way of creating masks to edit you images with. The red you refer to is simply Adobe's way of telling you which part of the image you have selected to edit. I would start with a bump of about a .5 stop of exposure, to brighten the eyes, a little bump up on the clarity slider will give them a little pop as well. For more extreme edits, you can use the saturation and color to really make things pop. If you do not see any sliders, click the little switch just to the right of the "Effect" list. I would choose the Exposure effect to start from and then move the sliders to get the effect you want. You want to be zoomed all the way in when you're doing this as well.

That should get you started in the right direction.

Andrew Rodgers
Perfected Perspectives -- Photography by Andrew Rodgers | Andrew Rodgers (acedrew) on Twitter