I like fade sharpen too, and sometimes just using regular sharpen on a soft-light layer and fiddling with the opacity works for me too. And I think it was ohfreckle whose tutorials finally persuaded me that working on the contrast can have nicer results than any kind of sharpening in a lot of cases ... but sharpening is such a funny, touchy thing, and I use high pass the most when I do sharpen.

Very glad you enjoyed this -- thank you! :-)