SlideShowPro Director applies unsharp mask to published images if requested to do so by SlideShowPro for Flash and SlideShowPro for Lightroom. If you change the amount of sharpening in either product, and you don't notice any changes in the imagery SlideShowPro Director publishes, your server is most likely using GD instead of ImageMagick for image processing. The ImageMagick library is required in order for unsharp mask to be applied. The request is ignored if you use GD.
To check which image library your installation of SlideShowPro Director is using, click on the System Info link at the top right of Director's interface.
If you would like to change to ImageMagick, contact your server administrator or web host for assistance.