A Scan of a 35mm Print is Not "Ground Truth"

A photo of a print of a movie.I'd love to talk in much greater detail about this topic, because it's a wonderful and complicated and nuanced issue. In the meantime, here's a Bluesky post I made:Posting an image of a 35mm print from a film as “ground truth” for color and tone is almost always ridiculous. Even brand new release prints vary from print to print, and prints deteriorate over time in different ways for various reasons. Plus the variables that exist when scanning a print.Generally speaking, resist the urge to compare a "scan of a 35mm print" to a "screenshot of the 4K" or whatever, because at that point you might as well compare two different iPhone photos taken of a movie in a dark theater. The comparison is giving you less information and clarity (ha!) than you think.