Quote Originally Posted by Ari View Post
I'm worried that one day I may actually perfect this process.
Practice makes perfect. Most, but not all, will eventually be making very good plates. Perfection it hard to attain, There are about 37 steps to do that can all mess up a plate. I don't think I ever mastered all of them. Sandarac varnish for example, is very hard to make flawless. So I moved to synthetics. Tearing the emulsion with the dark slide can be overcome by very careful handling of the plate and slide, and having a good holder. But I still sometimes tear a small part, especially with old collodion. I guess that's the key: eventually you KNOW what is causing every problem. You just decide and triage which to work on, which to ignore.