Comment by throw0101a

> I’m not sure if by "optical print"[0] you mean a film developing process (like C41), but the info is not lost and stays on the film.

You have a negative, which you develop.

For photos you then have to transfer that to paper. For cinema you want to distribute it, so you have to take the originally captured image(s) and make copies to distribute.

In both cases, because it's an analog process, and so things will degrade.

Of course if you scan the negative then further copies after are easy to duplicate.