I thought I'd cobble together this quick tutorial for high pass sharpening, a method I now use all the time having stumbled across it some months ago. The difference I notice is that it introduces little or no noise to the image unlike USM. If you have a noisy picture to start with I have found that by applying this method, then Noise Reduction (I use Neat Image) and again applying the High Pass sharpening it gives pretty good results although obviously you will have to experiment for yourselves.
1. Open your image as normal, this one was picked at random from a recent show and has just been converted from the RAW file. Hit Control + J to give you a duplicate layer.
2. Go to Filter > Other > High Pass and the image will go grey, don't worry this is normal! Set the pixel slider at 10, this appears to give the best and most consistent results for me and I never bother to deviate from it.
3. On the Layers Palette click on Blending Modes (the small box just above the top layer, it should say Normal) and select Hard Light. You can select Soft Light or any other one that you wish but as before this is the one that works for me.
4. You will now notice that the image looks very sharp so it now time to reduce that a bit, go to the Opacity tab and make your reduction as necessary, anything from 20-70% is recommended. I've set up an action recording this and when I recorded it I entered 35% as it was usually about the right amount. If after using the action I need to change it, for example to sharpen even more, I go to the History tab and select Master Opacity Change and increase or decrease as required.
Finally, flatten the image and you're done!
Hope this helps.