I ran some quick test and it is interesting.
One shot was a full moon and it wasn't very successful, but i would have fallen off my chair if it had made it really sharp. On another image it made a very nice difference. It was a shot of something that just didn't seem sharp, but right on the edge, and on that one, it was amazing. It is one of those, I wish i hadn't been handholding that camera on a cold day especially in old age!
I was interested in the sharpening tool to see how it would compare to the Nik program. With Nik's program I use it for preparing an image for printing. With this sharpening program it appears to be similar to the options in PS. They aren't the same at all.
Especially at the sale price, I will be adding it to my Topaz bundle. And yes, it is a good idea to be in focus to start with; however, it would be interesting to test this with other lens besides top of the line. I might borrow a kit lens from a student and run some test
For some; those who use PS all the time and are very skilled with that program probably can do something similar and with ease; but for me, the plug-ins are very helpful as I don't use PS enough to gain the control I want without hours of re-viewing video tutorials, etc.
