Sharpening Plug-In
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www.fredmiranda.com CSPro downloadable plugin for improved sharpening

Adapted from Fred Miranda's website: CSpro II Plugin is a new sharpening technology specific designed to accommodate Canon and Nikon cameras. This plugin is compatible with JPEG files straight from the camera or TIFF/JPEG files converted from RAW files.
Although CSpro II's interface appears simple and intuitive, complexity makes this plugin very smart: It provides everything from haloless sharpening, edgesharpening, luminance sharpening, mode sharpening, and more with just the press of a button. With this plugin you can choose from low or high ISO settings. Other options allow you to sharpen fine detail. There are pre-designed intensity levels, and options to reduce color noise from high ISO files. You can even create your own sharpening settings, preview settings and tweak intensity results.
OBSERVATIONSThis $20 download was worth every penny and more. I was able to sharpen much more aggressively without creating the noise and artifacts that can result from using too much Unsharp Mask. The algorithm apparently involves the sharpening of individual color channels and is easily adjusted for the image. The new SmartSharpen plug-in in Photoshop CS2 is also touted to be a considerable improvement over USM but I haven't tried it yet. Always save an unsharpened background image, whatever method you use, because it's impossible to undo sharpening after the image is saved.