Hi Gerry-
1) Click the small black triangle at the top right of the Detail window to show the preview box.
2) Making the best possible prints really does require softproofing and adjusting for the printer/paper combination. But I think that it is possible to get very close using the old trial and error method... make an adjustment in LR, make a test print, make another adjustment etc. Doing this, you can create a preset that contains your adjustments for a particular print. The downside to this, of course, is the cost of paper and the time required doing the back and forth adjustments. But it can be done.
3) If you really want to get the most refined sharpening, PK Sharpener is excellent. But with LRs capture and output sharpening, the only things really missing are image-specific creative sharpening and the level of control over local sharpening.
I think PKS is well worth the price and it does everything it claims. However, I recently heard about an alternative called the TLR Professional Sharpening Toolkit. I haven't used it but some people claim it works just like PKS and produces very comparable results. And the price is definitely right. Might be worth a look.
http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/TLRPro...ningToolkit.htm
