Sharpening

Hi,
I've been using the sharpening Media FX tool for ages with no problems. Today it has decided to over sharpen so it's not worth using at all. Any ideas how I can correct thuis, please?
Thanks.

The only advice I can offer, is to do a full program reset for VEGAS Pro.
Sometimes this fixes weird glitches that appear out of the blue!

Reset instructions here:
www.moviestudiozen.com/free-tutorials/doctor-zen-faq/how-to-reset-sony-software-to-default-settings#a1

The other thing to check is to make sure you haven't added Sharpening twice, by accident.
Sometimes you can accidentally add it directly to a Video, but then also add it to the entire Video Track as well and not realize it is being applied twice.

The best experiment to do after a reset, is to start a NEW TEST PROJECT, add one video only, then add Sharpening.
If it looks good, you know VEGAS Pro is working OK.
Now open your saved project.
If this looks bad, you have a problem inside of your project being caused by user error.

Apologies for my overdue thanks for your reply but I've been away. I've restarted my project and can see every clip looks rather oversharpened and I've simply added imported media to the project. I am working on a good spec laptop and I also have a good spec pc using an earlier version of Sony Vegas (13 I think) - it looks fine on that but when I play some clips back on this version of Vegas 21 Portable it liiks shimmery as if it's been oversharpened. Is there a way to adjust what is shown in  the preview box, please? This is an annoying and puzzling issue.
Thanks in advance! 

I've investigated further. If I open the file in Trimmer it plays perfectly. If I drag it to the timeline and open it in Preview I gert the distortion. Weird!!! Also when I put the trimmer screen oin  my preview screen disappears. I'ncidentally, Ive never used Trimmer before just editing using split in the timeline before. 

It might help if you could do a screengrab of your preview window to show the sharpening you are seeing.

Thank you. This i the default sharpening. Obviosly it's way too sharp but  but even at .1 it's too much so the sharpening tool is useless. on Sony Vegas 13 on my pc  it works fine. 
When the file plays in preview it shimmers much in the same way as the sharpening shows but if I play it back in the trimmer box it plays fine. Struggling to understand this when the older technology works just fine. As it was Sony Vegas, I couldn't move thepurchased software on to my new laptop because you can no longer verify it even if you've previously purchased it! Thanks for your help!  
 

Your project preview size is very small.  Try a setting Preview (Half) instead of Preview (Auto}.  This may make it look like your Trimmer window.  How does it look when rendered? Make sure you render "Best" quality
 
Personally I prefer to use Unsharp Mask instead of Sharpen.
As for installing VP13 on your laptop there's a post on the Vegas forum with instructions on how to do this now the old Sony Server has closed down.  It's the top item on the News page.  Unfortunately the Magix sites are playing up for me tonight so I cannot give you the link at present.

EDIT: I managed to get partly in to the Vegas site and this is the thread you need  www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/activation-of-sony-creative-software-era-applications--149297/
 

Thank you! I'll give all your suggestions a try.