Digital BW, The Print

> ... I wonder if anyone else that uses this road has noticed a change in the tonal quality of the image from before to after the final sharpening? I seem to be seeing a lessening of contrast towards a "smoother" tonal range. It is not unpleasant but I like a "punchier" print, so I am a bit surprised by this change that I am seeing.

I have not seen this.  I just played around with the Nik "Output Sharpener" and noticed (for the first time!!) that in addition to "Output Sharpening", the plugin also has a menu for "Creative Sharpening".  (This menu was collapsed, which may account for my failure to notice it.)  Is it possible that what you are seeing comes from one of the "creative" controls being set to a minus value?

It is not obvious how the output sharpening and creative sharpening interact with each other.    

Is there a way to disable the output sharpening while retaining the creative stage? I can certainly imagine using control points and "creative" effects to produce the basic image I want without having a *specific* output in mind.  It would be nice to be able to save all of this sharpening to a kind of master final version which would then be out-put sharpened according needs of the moment.