I recentlly conducted a test to determine which paper yielded the most vibrant results. This was to determine which paper to use for monthly club competition. For those special fine art type images and portraits, I use Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Satin, but it is too expensive to print everyday stuff, especially considering our club judging and critiquing is done from 8 feet away.
I printed the same (scenic) image on 12 papers from 5 well known paper manufactures. I put a number from 1 thur 12 on the back of each, and made a master list with the name of each paper and its price. I mixed up the papers and very carefully and painstakingly sorted out until i finally decided on on what i considered best, giving no regard for price. The papers ranged in price from 60cents per foot to $3. per foot. After choosing the paper, I looked its number up on the list to determine what paper I had chosen and would I be willing to pay its price.
I must say, all of the papers look very similar and it took lots of time being very critical to find a difference. The differences I found were a slight increase in contrast in the mid tones and the papers ability to present the neutral grays in the image as neutral with no color cast in them.
I have since given the prints to a friend who is having a terrible time deciding the differences. He has not yet called me to find out what he has chosen.
As for me: Like my mom always said "you have a champange appetite with a beer pocketbook" , my choice was "Ilford Prestege Gold Mono Silk" ($3. per foot). Too much to spend on camera club images, so I looked more and found that I really like the Hahneumuhle Photo Luster (90 cents per foot). I must say however that any of the other papers would do for average viewing. I really feel however that the Epson Ultra Premium Luster would be the smartest choice, as it is the least expensive of all and is 60 cents per foot. Most will be hard pressed to see any difference between papers, especially any between Epson and Hahneumhle. I printed on Epson, Hahnelumhle, Illford, Canson, Red River. All of the papers were either Luster, Pearl, or Satin. I used Image Print 10 to print using Image Print profiles.

Here is an 8 x 10 for you. sorry for the color balance. The .bitmap file you sent did not work to well. I think my processing converted it to jpg.

I did that with a compac flash I would suggest marking it with a sharpie. This way you can avoid it for those photoshots you may never have a chance at again. Or, no more than most SD cards cost, just throw it away.

A defective copy, is certainly possible, therefore can not with absolute certainty rule out your suggestion. However, if you search, reviews and test, i think you will find more opinions indicating lack of sharpness. You will find loads of folks desiring a lens with what many consider the perfect focal length, and most are having to make a decision to accept less, until Canon can really improve this lens sharpness. An attempt was made, with the series ll but not by enough.
A search will turn up folks on both sides of this debate. Many folks are satisfied with the sharpness of there lens, that however might only be an indicator of what that person will accept as "good enough".

I had the older 24-105. So did a friend. He nor I were ever satisfied with sharpness. Both of us have moved to a 24-70. Him Canon, and I Tamron.
I went Tamron because of the IS. He does only landscapes so did not need the IS. Now we are both happy. Before purchasing, we both considered the series ll 24-105 the many reviews we read suggested its sharpness had not improved enough.
So what can you do? Well no one is making a good 24-105 (too bad) so you have to sacrifice the extra telephoto and, in my opinion and after seeing results with both of the choices above, make you choice based on your need as described by the choices I and my friend made.

Tried both window mount with ball as well as bean bag. I prefer the bean bag. I have owned and tried several. Here is something to consider. I bought my latest bean bag because of its large size. I liked everything i read about the bag and its design. One thing i did not know until i got it was that the inside of the bag,(the part that straddles the glass or door) was made of a rubbery non slip type of material. This is in my opinion a not as good an idea as the designer intended. It grips the glass and door so well that a re-adjustment while shooting is almost not possible without removing the camera and lens. With my old bag i could just slide it around a bit, as it didn't have such a death grip.
Thinking you wont need to re-arrange you bag from time to time while shooting is kind of like thinking you wont need to re-arrange your butt while spending hours in the seat, it's just gonna happen.

I thought the original poster wanted to know if anyone is successfully using CC 2018 on the windows 7 platform.
I am running windows 7 pro. I successfully upgraded to CC 2018. I only have one issue that i know of. That is the menu fonts are smaller. In the preferences there is an opotion to set UI scaling. Trying to change it here does nothing. I am getting use to the smaller menu type. Not sure everyone can however.

It is a print head either it is blocked or no ink is getting to it. It is not a software communication problem. It is a hardware problem. Sometime getting a head back to life after such a long period of non use, takes days of trying. Soak the parking pad, do the shoe shine technique and keep doing nozzle cleanings. Always use the epson utility to do three cleanings in succession. The third cleaning is the strongest. This strongest cleaning cycle wont be reached if you just do a random cleaning, must do three (3) in succession.

A year layoff on an epson printer is certainly asking for this problem. Most of us have problems with the print head partially dropping a nozzle after just one week of non use and sometime less than a week.

If you get the head back, download "Qimage". You may find Qimage complicated to use, and that OK. Just use "unclog scheduler" and have it print the purge pattern at least one page per day. Oimage is an awesome printing program, however you don't have to take advantage of its too many features.
wilfred

It is a print head either it is blocked or no ink is getting to it. It is not a software communication problem. It is a hardware problem. Sometime getting a head back to life after such a long period of non use, takes days of trying. Soak the parking pad, do the shoe shine technique and keep doing nozzle cleanings. Always use the epson utility to do three cleanings in succession. The third cleaning is the strongest. This strongest cleaning cycle wont be reached if you just do a random cleaning, must do three (3) in succession.

A year layoff on an epson printer is certainly asking for this problem. Most of us have problems with the print head partially dropping a nozzle after just one week of non use and sometime less than a week.

If you get the head back, download "Qimage". You may find Qimage complicated to use, and that OK. Just use "unclog scheduler" and have it print the purge pattern at least one page per day. Oimage is an awesome printing program, however you don't have to take advantage of its too many features.

I have like so many, been waiting for someone to come out with a 24:70 image stabilized that is as sharp as the Canon non stabilized . So far it hasn't happened. I have been reading reviews of the Tamron and Sigma. At this time the choice must sacrifice one, Sharpness( landscape) or stabilization (sports and weddings).
Because no manufacture has yet put both Stabilization and Sharpness in a lens of this focal length, it evidently is too difficult or too expensive a feat.

As far as reducing noise. My experance with the problem is that, noise is introduced more with some cameras than others. The only thing you can do here is research and buy that camera with a proven reputation of low noise at high ISO. High ISO is always going to produce more noise, but if you shoot indoor, using high ISO, is the only way to get a usable shot. Fast lens will help keep from reaching so far into the noise bucket, but even 2.8 lenses wont completely solve the problem.
So, when you have taken care of these things, about about the only thing you, as the photographer can do is to get a real good exposure. A good exposure with the highlights way to the right will give you an image with less noise than just OK exposures.

I was wondering how many of you guys are printing your own images. Are any of you using Image Print by colorbyte?

Give as much consideration the your video card as you do ram.. Go to Adobe site and look at there "approved video cards". PS wont preform well without a good video card.

Newer verses older. My experience actually compairing the older with the newer was no difference in quality. I was told by canon tech that the newer converters (serieslll) would be better optically on the series ll lenses, but not so with the older (non series ll), and that the series lll converters would give any added edge to the newer (series ll) lenses.
I found this to be true, except for my 800 5.6. I found the newer series lll converter to give a slightly sharper image, with the newer converter. This is however the only lens i found this to be true for.
So my advice is to buy the newer more expensive series lll only if you need it for a series ll lens, or in my case the 800 5.6. Otherwise continue to use the series ll converters with the older (non series ll) lenses. Light loss same regardless.

Can't help with which device or cloud to use, I use a WD cloud device. But when you decide and want to view them on smart phone, I found an app. that will allow you to open and view RAW files. It is "Raw Droid Pro". Only one i could find that would display a RAW file.