Crystal Clear Picture

However, with a DSLR you do need to do some post processing in Photoshop. The correction I posted took 1 minute to do. If I were going to sell the image I'd have to have a lot more skill using Photoshop and spend a bit more time fussing over it.

I would use Smart Shapen if your in CS2, much more powerful than UMS.

USM is your friend, especially if you are shooting RAW. As Bob_A pointed out, it's in Filters->Sharpen->Unsharp Mask in CS. Canon even recommends using it to counter the effects the AA (antialiasing) filters have on sharpness.

I use the Noise Ninja Pro plug-in for CS which does noise removal and USM in one step which I like, but even with plain ol' USM you will not believe the difference. It won't save a really bad shot, but it will remove the side effects of the AA filter.

Start out with values of around 300/0.3/0 (That's 0.3 not 3) and see what you think. For shots that are a little softer than normal, you can increase the radius (2nd number) and decrease the amount (1st number). If you try this on high ISO images without noise reduction, it will drastically increase the amount of noise though, so you have to play around a bit.

I'm getting to like Smart Sharpen more and more ... and the noise reduction works better than I originally thought.

Your right Bob! Great suggestions... thanks....