What does Mid/Detail option do?

What does Mid/Detail option actually do?
With the help of artificial intelligence, it complements the picture to a sharper one? Or is it some other simpler procedure?

What does Mid/Detail option actually do?
With the help of artificial intelligence, it complements the picture to a sharper one? Or is it some other simpler procedure?

Page 2572 in the November 2021 manual (called Midtone Detail )

What does Mid/Detail option actually do? With the help of artificial intelligence, it complements the picture to a sharper one? Or is it some other simpler procedure?

It's simpler, basically sharpening not the highlights, not the shadows, but the mid-tones (where skintone lives). You can also apply negative Mid Detail and soften skintone, which is helpful when you're trying to add a bit of "glamor" to faces. The Sharpen controls, plus OFX Sharpen Edges, OFX Soften/Sharpen, OFX Texture, OFX Face Refinement, and OFX Beauty (I'm doing these from memory, not 100% sure of the names) each work in slightly different ways. You have to experiment to see which does what you need in a specific situation.

If I was trying to sharpen an image, I'd look at OFX Sharpen Edges first and adjust the settings carefully to make sure it only affects what I need. Over-sharpening can yield pretty ugly pictures.

The way I understand Mid/Detail is that it is actually a targeted contrast adjustment, similar to how color boost is a targeted saturation adjustment. By "targeted," I mean "uneven," in the sense that it's not a blanket or linear adjustment; changing areas that already have high contrast first, then low; or vice versa depending which way you roll the slider. The same way color boost targets areas of low saturation first (or high, depending which way you move the slider). The page in manual explains it better than me though
All that to say, I don't think Mid/Detail is very taxing on the system, compared to the traditional sharpening tools, but experiment like Marc said and see a good mix for how everything fits in your workflow! I personally use everything at my disposal, just at different stages.

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I'd like to supplement the comments by adding that the actual control name to search for in the DR Manual as of Nov 2023 is Midtone Detail or (MD) with the brackets as the manual publishes it. Here's a copy and paste of the description found on page 2883 of Color | Chapter 129:

"Midtone Detail (MD): When this parameter is raised, the contrast of regions of the image with high edge detail is raised to increase the perception of image sharpness, sometimes referred to as definition.

When this parameter is lowered to a negative value, regions of the image with low amounts of detail are softened while areas of high-detail are left alone. 0 is unity. The range is –100 through +100."

I'll let you draw your conclusions.