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No doubt, there are board members here with extremely high levels of knowledge when it comes to photography dating, paper stock, printing process, etc. Far more knowledgeable dealing with photos than I will ever be. That being said, the maybe oversimplified answer to the OP’s question is if the photography subject is nearly impossible to find as a type 1 specimen, types 2, 3 & 4 will be far more valuable than those types of a common subject, even if the common subject is Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, etc. At Hakes Auctions, we have recently sold a number of PSA authenticated type 2’s, 3’s and especially 4’s, that brought four figure prices because the more desirable type 1’s of those subjects do not exist or are so scarce that prices would be unaffordable in many cases. In this situation, it can certainly be feasible to pay for PSA to authenticate these knowing full well that they are not type 1 photos. Examples would be 1937 Ciudad Trujillo team photos with Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell and Jackie Robinson in his Kansas City Monarches uniform. You don’t need a lot of technical knowledge about photographs to make this work.