In actuality, the first slider to select should be radius ...
I agree.
... and is based on the edge frequency of the image....
I disagree.
... then amount then detail and finally, masking.
I agree with Amount and Masking coming last.
Let's address the part I disagree with.
Capture sharpening is supposed to reverse the blurring effects that caused our original Capture lose some of the original sharpness/detail.
This has nothing to do with the original subject's detail, but only with the Capture process induced blur. The subject is not to blame that it now blurred, it's the Capture process itself. If we are able to reverse the capture blur, the subject will be restored to it's original full 'unblurredness' (how's that for a scrabble word
). Some (but not all) detail is already lost beyond recovery, so it won't become perfect, but we can still restore a lot.
While it's true that edge detail is important in relaying the impression of sharpness (after all our eyes do something similar), surface structure is very much part of how we perceive materials. It allows us to e.g. discriminate between cardboard and leather. It's therefore paramount to also Capture sharpen this properly. Obviously, we do want to reduce (or at least not amplify) some photon shot noise in smooth gradients like sky or other structureless smooth gradients.
The photon shot noise is added to our image of the scene by using a relatively short exposure, and will be amplified by the Capture and demosaicing process. That, and some other sources of noise, is not what we want to emphasize in our images, so we also need to address that as part of the Capture sharpening process. We want to improve the signal (detail) to noise ratio.
The part that the video tutorial got right, is that the order of the sharpening controls in the detail panel is not in an optimal sequence, but then the sharpening controls themselves are not optimal either.
But hey, this is coming from somebody who has 1/2 a clue how to use ACR/LR capture sharpening....note, I did actually work with the engineers to help develop ACR/LR's capture sharpening.
Sorry but I'm not overly impressed with the result, although the masking is useful to cover up some of the sharpening shortcomings.
Cheers,
Bart