How to adjust sharpen tool in Final Cut Pro

When you drag and drop any effect onto a clip in the timeline, you are applying the effect to the clip. It does not vanish, but you then should open the Inspector (command-4) to adjust the effect settings. (You will probably find that you have several Sharpen effects applied. )

Depending on the effect, and the clip, it may not be apparent immediately that you applied it, as the change may be subtle; and this one of those cases. For other effects the changes are more obvious.

Make sure you have the clip selected or the effect adjustment parameters will not appear in the Inspector.

If you don’t see the effect in the inspector put the pointer on the right side of the Effect line where the show/hide button will appear.

With the Sharpen effect, the default setting gives only a very subtle, almost unnoticeable difference.

You change it in the Inspector, as I said above: