This conversation seems a bit “angry” for no good reason. I use Lightroom’s capture sharpening all the time. Then I’ll often do some “creative” local sharpeneing using the local adjustment brush (very carefully). Then I do output sharpening when making a print from Lightroom’s excellent print module. The print sharpening selections, though seemingly “too simple” are actually quite excellent in my view, and “on the fly” for whatever print size one is making. OR, I do output sharpening via the export dialog for “screen” if I’m exporting a copy of my master file to be displayed on, well, screens.
All three; all very nicely executed. Jeff Schewe’s books “The Digital Negative” and “The Digital Print” are excellent when it comes to understanding how it all works, and how much “good stuff” there is under the hood in Lightroom. I will often turn off the default amounts of capture sharpening that Lightroom applies on import, and start from scratch. I find that thoughtful use of the masking before I begin to “do much” helps a lot with the quality of the outcome of Amount, Radius, and Detail sliders. And as Jeff points out, there is an interrelationship between the noise sliders and sharpening sliders so that I’ll often tweak the sharpening after I’ve addressed any needed noise adjustments. IF I remember correctly, there’s an excellent tutorial that Jeff gives in the “From Camera to Screen and Print” videos.
Are there other, more sophisticated, ways to do sharpening? Certainly. Perhaps especially for problem image files. But Lightroom’s tools really are excellent in their own right thanks to Andrew, Jeff and the others at Pixel Genius. And, these days, you’d have to beat me with a rubber hose to get me to print out of Photoshop, versus Lightroom! Lightroom’s Print Module, with the ability to create presets for printer, paper, size, layout, ICC profile application, is FABULOUS. The only variable that I need to remember is rendering intent, because Lightroom’s soft proof rendering intent selection isn’t “sticky” when you go from soft proof to Print Module.
Rand