I struggled with a jewelry store commercial one Christmas until "Sharpen" came to the rescue. Even closeups of diamonds under lots of light seemed dull. I cookie cut a second layer with just the stone shapened...i was just the "pop" the shot needed.

Well you know how you make a video clip look like a pencil drawing by making the clip a parent , custom add bump map add a light grey panel under as a child
The sharpen fx on the parent really helps control detail in a more graphic way

Also on incoming text with a directional blur add sharpen makes the blur lines more graphic and cartoon like add 2 of them at weaker levels rather than one at a high level

For a watercolour look add median and then sharpen fx to pop your line work

And as mentioned before any clip with glass or reflective surfaces sharpen fx helps control the glare

And to make a clip look more wet like red lips when something is wet the highlights are sharper

MichaelS please explain in more detail how you used the cookie on 2nd track sounds intresting

Thanks
Rory

edit
add bump map fx on the grey back with ambience on high will get rid of exess detail in the pencil clip

Well you know how you make a video clip look like a pencil drawing by making the clip a parent , custom add bump map add a light grey panel under as a child

Are tricks like these to find somewhere, as tutorials?
And could you please repeat at least the first trick in a little more detailled way? (So that a Vegas novice can follow it)

Goodtimej:

You are correct, even with sharpen turned to zero, it still sharpens a little until you uncheck it.

I think it's a great tool. Very effective and can make effects look like you want when it's cranked a little more.

I have noticed it works better for some cameras footage than others. You have to experiment with it. Also, although it looks like not much is happening until you really crank it way over, it is.

I think the sharpen filter applied and set to zero makes the preview correct, don't know why but when applied it looks sharp like the preview in edius and premiere, and yes i have it set at best.

What do you mean makes the preview correct?

Do you mean this? I am editing HDV footage on an NTSC DV widescreen timeline. I zoom and pan all over on the footage and when I do, it makes the the footage a little blurry until I render it out, even on best. I still don't know why and it drives me nuts! Could this maybe be a fix for this strange problem? Is that what you meant?

Jeff9329,

You said, ""You are correct, even with sharpen turned to zero, it still sharpens a little until you uncheck it."

I knew that a few other fx load fresh at more than 0.00 settings, such as LightRays and Gaussian Blur, and just setting them back to 0.00 shows what it should (no fx).

So I just tested your observation above on Sharpen, and as remarked, even though it does load fresh at 0.00, it still sharpens some unless totally unchecked.

Odd, and/but thanks for pointing that out. I use Sharpen with a light to moderate touch, but use it pretty regularly.

I just used Sharpen set to 0.00 to make some SR12 footage look better. I used it as a cutaway camera when shooting the Nutcracker. The main footage was on my FX1. The SR12 video really looked terrible, mostly due to lack of "clarity," for lack of a better way of describing it. Small buttons on costumes seemed to be partly "absorbed" in the surrounding color. The sharpen at 0.00 seemed to fix things without giving it that telltale "sharpened" look.

So yes, 0.00 definitely does do something.

One place the Sony Sharpen will work miracles is when you downrez something. You can actually add a generous amount of sharpening to a downrez, and when you do, it makes an absolutely HUGE difference.

One place the Sony Sharpen will work miracles is when you downrez something. You can actually add a generous amount of sharpening to a downrez, and when you do, it makes an absolutely HUGE difference. When going from 1440x1080 to 720x480, how much do you use?

Just put your preview resolution in best full and monitor from a TV or as close to a real output as you can. Then eyeball it and do some test renders. I find that a generous amount (the slider at least halfway) looks really good. The more you downrez, the more sharpen you seem to need. From HD to 320x240 takes a whole lot of sharpen for instance.