File formats for saving "original" photos -- Part Three

Continuing the discussion about image file formats, you may have noticed
that I put the term "original" in quotes. The reason for that is
simple, what is an "original"? In pre-computer, pre-copy machine days,
the concept of an original was very much an issue. For example, in court
proceedings, we would often get into discussions about whether or not
the original document was being presented in court and whether a copy
could be substituted for the original. Those categories of discussions
are long gone just as handwritten and typed copies of documents are
mostly gone. It assumed now that there are copies of all documents and
it is extraordinarily rare to get into a discussion about producing an
original document.

That said, the same thing applies to photographs. In pre-digital times,
there was an original photo. Film cameras made one individual photograph
with either negative film or positive film i.e. slides. The only way to
reproduce the photo was either make multiple prints from a negative or
use a camera to make a photographic copy of the original. My original
slide copier was a device that hooked to my camera so I could take
another photo of the slide. If multiple prints were made from one
negative, each print was a separate original but because of variations
in the development process, every print was slightly different from the
last. But the real question, usually not asked, was whether or not the
original was the negative or the print? This issue became the idea in
the plot of many movies and TV shows. Remember the scene where the
original photo is destroyed but, aha!, they still had the negative?
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