MSharpen

This plugin for Avisynth implements an uncommon concept in spatial sharpening. Although designed specifically for anime, it also works quite well on normal video. The filter is very effective at sharpening important edges without amplifying noise.

This version of MSharpen requires Avisynth version 2.5 or beyond. The filter works with RGB32, YUY2, or YV12 input. In YUY2 space it sharpens only the luminance channel. In RGB and YV12 spaces it sharpens all three color channels. If you want to sharpen luminance only for RGB or YV12 source material, use ConvertToYUY2(), process, and then convert back if desired. In all color spaces, color is included in the detail detection.

The justification for the filter is simple. The biggest complaint about Unsharp Mask (for example) is that setting the strength high enough to sharpen important edges also amplifyies noise and small detail. MSharpen solves this problem effectively by detecting important edge areas and then applying sharpening only to those areas. You first set the 'threshold' parameter so that desired edges are selected. Then you set the sharpening strength. You can set very high sharpening strengths without amplifying noise or fine detail (because the edge map is used to mask the sharpening).