Actually, it's IMPOSSIBLE to do any of that crazy garish stuff in my darkroom, specifically because it is MY own darkroom. Nor do any of my cameras have the ability to do that sort of thing themselves. I'm perfectly aware of how to do post-scan PS pseudo-sharpening and so forth. Or more politely, mimic-sharpening. Where do you think those PS app terms came from in the first place?
It was for sake of helping people in the graphic and printing trades transition over from big copy film practice to equivalent scanning protocols instead. At least they were supposed to know what they wanted, or what the client wanted. But now everyone throws away their expensive two year old old DLSR and replaces it with a thousand dollar Smartphone which has an onboard green and purple psychedelic cobwebs-inside-the-lens simulation app, mistaking idiocy for creativity.
Even in the darkroom, it takes some experience to recognize how not to either overdo or underdo masking. Yes, masking can be used for edge sharpening. But whenever possible, I prefer to let the film choice, and how that is specifically developed, control that particular variable. But digital capture differs in that respect, and once a heavy hand is placed on the throttle, many people just don't know when to let up.
Films have "native sharpness" - or what we laymen call edge acutance. Jason (Nodda) probably has a more correct way of explaining that, since he is the only real optical engineer chiming in. But lacking that same ability, digital capture relies on artificial edge enhancement instead, which is inherently lossy to some degree.
