I have been using NIK Sharpener since it was Version 1.04 back in the late 90's. I don't see it mentioned that often,...I cut my teeth early on with it and have been quite satisfied.

I am not a fan of their adjustment point feature although many rave about it. Over time my particular library of asst'd processing techniques are old friends,..when time is at a premium I don't want additional plug ins or programs to learn nor the related $$ and installation space req'd.
I occasionally will try a free product download to doodle with,...see if it beats my tried n' true,....guess I'm just a 'less is more" kind of guy.

In NIK Sharpener I particularly like the fact that you can [ sharpen or leave unsharpened,...by selected color or colors ] in an image.
Combine that with selective masking and layers makes it a superb tool for my style of workflow.

I do have Topaz DeNoise 5,...got for a particularly difficult job I had,..but.. I hardly ever use it,...having learned some other methods within photoshop and ACR.

Just my two cents from here.
I can elaborate further if theres any interest.

Good luck and happy picking from the many available products.
I'l be reading comments and learning,.as always

Martys

Good morning, possibly mirroring some of the advice of others, I would do trials (for at least a few days, as the sale for Topaz ends 12/31) on 3 companies in particular: OnOne Software www.ononesoftware.com , Nik www.niksoftware.com and Topaz labs www.topazlabs.com .

In particular, I use Nik and OnOne, and love them both. I like the control points from Nik and OnOne has improved their brush capabilities extensively (and someone said Topaz has done the same).

All 3 companies offer a lineup of webinars and tutorials, and watching these makes all the difference. Also, one thing I like about OnOne and Nik is that some of their tutorials are not just about their product (I have seen Aperture-related videos on both sites).

I have not used Topaz in a while, but I am actually considering picking up Adjust/Simplify and one or 2 others before the sale ends....

Forrest

NIK works great with aperture, the nice thing about NIK is the control points take some time to learn them. The allow selected adjustments on just small areas of a photo. You can put 4 of them in a sky, link them and adjust all the points at he same time. They have lots of really good information on their site. Google purchased them a few months back, so far there hasn't been any changes made. I thought they might place the NIK programs in Picassa and not offer them anymore for other applications. That would be another way for google to collect some more e-mails and information.

Good luck