Dry plate.

[alexvaras]

A green filter will help with skin tones, Alex.

PF

Thanks! I will try it on LR and get one for the lens.

[titrisol]

Always blame it on the peeling emulsion!!!

[Brazile]

More likely its blue-sensitive (and nearly everything else insensitive) nature. Somewhat risky with shooting women of a certain skin hue, my wife for one. Fortunately she trusts me not to post the really bad ones, something I am careful to maintain!

Robert

[alexvaras]

Most likely yes, I have tried in LR green filter and darkens a lot.
I will shoot only male subjects or really perfect skins

[PFMcFarland]

I don't think applying a filter effect in post is going to work the same as doing it in the field.

PF

[alexvaras]

I don't think applying a filter effect in post is going to work the same as doing it in the field.

PF

Still looking for the correct size of green filter

[Brazile]

Most likely yes, I have tried in LR green filter and darkens a lot.
I will shoot only male subjects or really perfect skins

Well, perfect skin, or skin of the right hue. Blue-sensitive increases contrast on my wife, who is very fair-skinned, but with some reddish blooming in some areas, whereas it just makes me look oddly tanned while increasing the contrast in my hair, which is IRL losing contrast as I age. So what's amusing but fairly pleasant on me is considerably less so on her, and neither of us has perfect skin at this point.

But it has very little effect on my daughter, whose skin color is more like mine was at her age (more in the direction of a latte) and makes my son (fair-skinned, red hair) look positively grizzled.

This is a useful lesson, though, about dry plates (and collodion as well, all UV/blue-sensitive processes) -- the color palette of your scene can have a surprising effect on the contrast of your photo as well as the apparent overall speed of the emulsion! Scenes that a light meter reports as having similar light levels indoors vs outdoors, for example, can be underexposed in the former case and overexposed in the latter without too much trouble. But this applies even with shooting outdoors only, where the light or the subject is yellow or reddish.

Just be aware of the light, both its strength and its color, which shooting with this stuff. This is a lesson I'm still taking on board, after shooting more than a hundred plates by this point.

Robert

[alexvaras]

Thank you, Robert, for such detailed description of your experience.
I have downloaded an app which I can see the blue spectre (I think so) and I will do the photo with it and compare, maybe this way I can save some plates

[GrahamS]

Could these plates ever have been taken as hand luggage on a commercial flight in the '80s? It looks like x-ray damage to me, from a time when airport security x-ray machines were very crude. I admire your diligence, Alex. Thanks for sharing with us.

[alexvaras]

Some of them show strikes of darkness/lightness but no all, about 20% of them, even the ones closer to the center inside the box.
I have a second box of these, first box is about to be finished.
I think the scanner would have damaged all of them, not only a few...
Thank you, Graham, I keep shooting them with hope the plate will be fine