Capture Sharpen (and other questions)?

Question

I have been a very big advocate of capture sharpening for fine art workflow for more than a few years now (landscape fine art gallery enlargements). I was under the impression that in ACR (7.1) by using the Radius to the left (0.5) and Detail to the right (100) I was maximizing the deconvolution aspect of sharpening and maybe even drawing out a hair more real detail from the raw file.
Today I did a test on a high frequency raw image (trees) and had my settings at Amount 45, Radius 0.5, Detail 0, and masking at 20. But then I also did it on the same image, this way: I brought a second version of the raw file into PS with no capture sharpening, and saved it as a tiff, then I brought that tiff back into ACR 7.1 and then did the capture sharpening. In Photoshop CS6 I put them on top of each other as layers (one raw sharpened and one tiff sharpened) and at all viewing distances they were exactly the same to my eye (I did notice that the histograms of each were very, very slightly different).
But I could not see a single pixel or edge change anywhere in the image even at 1600% viewing distance. This seems to blow away my impression about deconvolution sharpening actually drawing out more real detail from a raw file. I totally understand that sharpening is not real detail, but on this forum years ago I came to believe that somehow a bit more real detail might be accessed in raw by the aforementioned settings. Any thoughts?
Second question: do you really think there is a quantitative quality difference in detail (or the illusion of) in an image that has capture sharpening applied in ACR (7.1) at its native size, then is enlarged substantially with further rounds of sharpening and grain simulation in the end (versus just sizing it up soft and doing all the sharpening at the end)?  I did testing on this years ago and it seemed to be noticably better overall. I guess I'm just second guessing it again.
My basic workflow is capture sharpen Radius 05. / Detail 100, then upsize with Smoother (40, 50, 60, 70 inches...) then do some moderate high pass, then advanced use of unsharp mask (LAB - L channel - or Luminosity - RGB - also blending/blend if sliders for fall off if necessary) then ACR grain simulation (on a seperate layer - not to create grainy photos - but create the illusion of more detail and to camouflage artifacting).  I believe after years of testing and practice this seems to be about as good as it gets for my content.
Lastly, smart sharpen... I have not used this much, but do you think this workflow might benefit from using it instead of USM (with the more deconvolution - lens blur/more accurate) type of sharpen near the end)?
Side note: for those involved with focus bracketing (for increased depth of field with the sharpest f/stop) it is common knowledge that capture sharpening at the raw stage (before the Auto Align and Auto Blend in PS) confuses the auto blend algorithm as to what are the real sharper pixels. So, we don't capture sharpen those images (this is common practice).
And after blending the images (Auto Blend) we usually just size up (for enlargement) and go.  Now I am thinking that after the focus blending is finished and the file is flattened it might be a good idea to bring that tif file back into ACR and apply a little bit of capture sharpening before the upsize. Does that make sense to you?
Cheers for your time and feedback!
Message linebreaks added by: PECourtejoie

Answer 1

Disclaimer: I did not entirely understand the original post, and maybe some of this does not apply in your multi-step process, so take with salt...
ACRFREAK wrote:
With low ISO shots (100) I always try to use the least noise reduction possible in ACR (less is more approach) which means on correctly exposed images ("to the right") on Canon cameras, my ACR settings are often 0 on luminance and 0-5 on color noise.
At ISO 100, I rarely use any luminance noise reduction, however my experience is that even under ideal circumstances including low ISO, a modicum of color noise reduction is still essential for optimum image quality. - it is almost never desirable to set color noise reduction to zero, IMO - YMMV. (Note: in NX2 - you don't even get a choice about it - (true) color noise reduction will be applied, as Nikon sees fit).
Note: ACR's color noise reduction algorithm is image adaptive (it's more "aggressive" on higher ISO shots). You shouldn't see much (if any real) detail loss with color noise reduction at 25 on ISO 100 shots, eh?
ACRFREAK wrote:
My theory is that I am trying to keep a much of the fine detail as possible. Also the reason I like the 0.5 radius and 100 detail.
In my opinion, ideally, the sharpen settings should depend on the photo - type, and inherent focus... (.5/100 may be great for ultra-clean, ultra-sharp landscapes, but may not be appropriate for portraits...)
But different strokes for different folks. (and I don't know what kinds of photos you mainly (or only) shoot).
Rob