Edge Sharpening in Aperture 1.5 - how/when to use it?

I'm shooting RAW files with a Canon 350D.

When I import to Aperture, in the "RAW Fine Tuning" section of Adjustments, it

detects the Canon 350D and sets some (presumably Apple/Canon-set) default

settings for the RAW development - Boost 1.0; Sharpening Intensity 0.52, Edges

0.46; Chroma Blur 2.0; Auto noise compensation.

That's the same as it was in Aperture 1.1

Now this "new" Edge Sharpen tool in adjustments seems very similar to what's

already under RAW Fine Tuning. So is the idea to use it

(Intensity/Edges/Falloff) instead of the settings under RAW Fine Tuning, or in

addition to them? The default values for Edge Sharpen are quite different:

Intensity 0.81/Edges 0.22/Falloff 0.69.

I know the answer is at least partly "experiment and see what looks right" but I

think there should be some logic to the way I experiment (2 sharpening filters

or just one with changing values).

And is there a difference (other than the 3-pass Falloff thing) between the old

Intensity/Edges sharpening and the "new" Intensity/Edges/Falloff sharpening?

Wasn't 'edge sharpening' what Aperture was doing all along in previous versions?

Or is the term "Edges" misleading me?

Thanks for any enlightenment!

--Jonathan.

According to the "what's new" section of the help PDF (under help menu), the "sharpening intensity" setting under Raw Fine Tuning is only supposed to compensate for blur introduced during the Chroma Blur (aka noise reduction) filter.

It does not replace the separate Edge Sharpening feature which you would use based on output target (i.e. more sharpening for smaller prints, less sharpening for larger prints, web vs print, etc.).

My impression from the release notes is that all things being equal one should pretty much

always use Edge Sharpening, and the "old" sharpening is there just so that if you already have

photos in your library that used it, you can still tweak them.

Subjectively, I think the edge sharpening looks better.

Just to clarify, there are now THREE ways to apply sharpening in Aperture.

1. Under RAW Fine Tuning (Intensity/Edges), set on by default when importing RAW files.

2. By turning on Sharpening module/filter (Intensity/Radius)

3. 'New' Edge Sharpening (Intensity/Edges/Falloff)

I understand Number 3 replacing Number 2 (other than for backwards compatibility or people who prefer it), but I'm trying to figure how Number 1 fits into the picture.

Check out the Apple video entitled "Aperture 1.5: Edge Sharpening" (and other movies) on

the new Aperture support page:

http://www.apple.com/support/aperture/

http://www.apple.com/support/aperture/tutorials/edge_sharpen/