What type of sharpening is being applied by the sharpening slider in a local adjustment (the Equalizer)?
I assume it’s unsharp mask with some reasonable defaults. But is it something else?
The manual does not say about any specifics, and from the results it looks like a very basic edge detection and adding contrast type, that give an illusion of sharpening. Its what Unsharp Mask does it a nutshell, so its probably a very generic, bare bone Unsharp Mask type tool. There is also tool next to it for blurring, which looks like standard Gaussian blur filter.
I find these tools to be mostly useful if you want to selectively tone down sharpening that is otherwise as it should be, but maybe some high frequency detail are that is not important is starting to look at bit too oversharpne and draws unnecessary attention. This is where a bit of blur local adjustment can be just enough not to draw attention. Or sometimes you may have a busy background but not fast enough lens , so you can fake more depth of field in some situations. As a down and dirty thing I’ve once used it to blur faces in a crowed for witness protection.
Local sharpening adjustment, can be useful for sharpening some specific details in a shot. Eyes maybe or jewelry.
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And that’s just how I would want to use local sharpening. I suppose if it does the job, then it’s good enough.
Yes. If you need really specific local adjustments for compositing or complex retouching, than best to do it with more dedicated tools, such as Photoshop and other third party plug ins. For simple things its ok.