You can use a virtual copy to compare before-and-after views or different settings. View the image at 50%, 75%, or 100% magnification to better see the difference – whichever works best for you.
For appealing portraits, for example, I make sure not to over-sharpen.
For web images, check the sharpness at the final output size; for print, however, you need to experiment a bit until you “know” how the result will look on paper compared to the screen. 
Appreciate it thanks, my only gripe there is that my system (sorry to be playing this tune again…) takes a while to render images in PL, so a lot of back-and-forth comparisons are actually quite painful to do!
But the virtual comparison bits ARE the answer so I do appreciate that.
Interesting observation, Marco:
I’m not sure how much you get out and about, but film and grain filters are among the most popular apps and add-ons out there among Instagrammers.
Not sure there’s anyone but tasteless birders and adult content producers who like the plastic look. Big thumbs down on removing all the organic detail and replacing it with synthetic detail.
I kind of agree with you but I would say that (a) not everyone is an avid Instagrammer and (b) I am mostly talking about high ISO shots that would be very grainy and have a lot of colour noise in them if the smartphones didn’t do a high degree of AI based NR. In my experience while some may be striving for trendy film-like looks in Instagram they are not looking for stark levels of grain and chroma noise and would in those circs prefer the airbrushed plastic look. Just look at what kind of selfies certain age groups post - they almost look cartoon level in terms of the skin smoothing etc. Anyway, I think the point I am making is that the plastic skin look may not be as universally hated by everyone as we assume. There are of course also cultural norms. It was said that this look is favoured in Japan for example - not sure if that is still the case