I'm wondering about the + & - using ACR do Capture Sharpening. It seems pretty easy and does offer some control, but I've not compared it with USM etc.
I generally use something in the range of 60 - 100 for amount, 1 for radius, 40-60 for detail and then hold down the ALt key while dragging the masking slider to where most, but not all of the image is masked. Oh, I forgot to mention that the image has to be at at least 100% for the sharpening to be visible. Double clicking on the magnifying lens in the upper left corner will jump to 100%.
What do others do, or not do, or even think about this adjustment in ACR? Here is a screen clip for reference.