Hi!
There are many different ways to sharpen in PS. Some work better than others depending on the image. You might want to consider learning a few different techniques. The biggest mistake most people make is that they sharpen directly on the image. At a minimum it's best to sharpen on a duplicate layer using Luminosity, or convert to Lab mode and then sharpen on the "Lightness" channel (which is essentially the Luminosity of the image). Apart from not damaging the original copy of the image, you can adjust the degree of sharpness more than you can just by using USM on the background, or original, image, by using the opacity slider or by double clicking on the thumbnail and using custom blending to work on the relationship between the background layer and the top layer.
May I humbly suggest for those who have Elements (not the full PS beastie) to produce a layer which would give sharpness if overlayed on the original image. Then at least by playing with the opacity of the sharpening layer one could produce sharpness as desired. Also, this layer can always be removed without damaging the original picture...
Boris Binks ;)
