Darla,
The sharpening definitely makes the subject's beautiful blue eyes pop out more. However, the wavy lines that now exist in her face is an indication of image degration due to oversharpening.
Also, regarding sharpness of edges in art, there's a subject called "lost and found" edges, of which I'm not an expert, but I've found the following two references on the internet regarding the subject and which I think is relevant here. It's actually a subject I've been hoping someone would write an indepth article about for the forum:
Reference from
http://innovativart.com/paintinfo3.html:- Varying the occurrence of hard and soft edges can be not only aesthetically pleasing, but also seem to solve a lot of problems that seem to be related to color or drawing.
Lost and found edges or hard and soft edges are ways to think in terms of. Beginning edges are hard (those that face the light and are struck by the light) and turning edges are soft, in general.
Hard and soft, lost and found, ebb and flow... This constant sense of pulsating, rhythmic change is needed to impart vitality to a painting.
Reference from
http://www.artworkshops.ca/articles/figurep.html:[list]An outline identifies a shape but ignores everything else except the outer shape of the subject, i.e. an outline of a head tells us nothing about the person