Scanning - is PROCESS . Post processing is - when File Transfered to PShop. Are we clear? Sharpening while scanning is very important to get as much as possible fine details from film . This fuction works like Lens aperture - wide open or closed at f= 16.0. If missed - USM won't help . You can not sharp - if you don't have nothing to sharp . Like soft filter . Vuescan has embedded (!!!) Luminosity Noise reduction. This is one is a big pixel killer . You can see how it works in LR 3.3 . Vuescan is unexpensive program for fast no-worries scanning . If we are talking about third party scanner software - we shoud talk about Silverfast . With all set of settings , - USM also included ..........