Hi Ron,
I use to Copy Merged and Paste in such cases. This creates a one layer representation of the actual state of the image on top of the layer stack or in a separate document.
Peter

I think I see what you mean - sequentially merge and remask. I was hoping it would not come to that. Thanks for the help.

Just to get my thoughts together I went ahead and wrote down my assumptions about sharpening and what I am trying to achieve. Maybe you or others will have time to comment. My attitude about sharpening has changed quite a bit over the last three or four months so I am open to suggestions. Eventually I can get this system to work but it may always be cumbersome - especially after I add the sharpening for printer steps.

Sharpening assumptions and guidelines

Sharpening is more or less bad.
Sharpening is not a creative tool.
While almost all images will require some sharpening, most images have some areas that will not benefit from sharpening.
Any areas of an image that do not benefit from sharpening should be protected from sharpening.
Any sharpening that does not visibly improve an image output (video or print) should be avoided.
Sharpening should be deferred as long as possible.

Minimum necessary steps for technically competent sharpening: (More may be necessary depending on variability of detail)

1. Maximum detail extracted from image using 'Channel Mixer' to create the 'detail' channel.

2. A specific Gaussian blur radius should be selected and applied to separate copies of the newly created 'detail' channel (inverted) to create edge masks for each of the following:
A non-sharp mask
A fine detail mask
A coarse detail masks

3. These masks should be applied to their respective sharpening layers in such a way that will allow the use of:

Smart sharpen w/ lens blur (with carefully chosen settings) Luminosity blend - with the adjusted and corrected image Tuned with opacity and Blend if

katyp

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Smart sharpening - CS2