<...> I tried hard to understand the points the points these academics made, however, it's difficult for me to come to any other conclusion that their position is rooted in elitism—that "true history" can only be discovered by straining and toiling, as they do.'

With respect, historians who are involved with archiving aren't grinding these historical points fine because they're 'rooted in elitism'. Even if some are elitist (some people are), that's not what the profession of archiving is all about. Snowwrestler before me aptly sums the matter up. I'd also offer the following comments but I tackle some of the reasons why archivists do what they do from a more technical perspective.

Archiving is a very complex business, especially so if historical context is to be preserved with fidelity. Moreover, as we've seen from both the article and these posts, that historical 'fidelity' is defined or set by the different contexts in which the archive material is used. Simply, people will use archived material in many different ways according to their individual requirements; furthermore, one's requirement will also likely vary depending on one's circumstances or surroundings. (For instance, a curator will likely require the highest quality of reproduction for a museum exhibit and a lower one on his/her smartphone.)

Here, I'll mainly confine myself to archived images as per the article, however these issues could also involve paintings and other works of art, and even objects (have you noticed how the value of a rare coin dramatically decreases in value if you are silly enough to remove its patina?)

Back to images: Ideally, for preservation, we'd like to replicate an image perfectly and end up with an identical clone—and the only way to do that is copy the whole physical object molecule-for-molecule. Clearly, this is impossible, so what’s next?

The limits of current technology means that essentially we are limited to capturing a planar reproduction of the image by photographing or scanning it from directly above or by projecting light through it onto some recording medium. So what are the criteria for doing this, that is if we wish to copy every trace or single bit of information from said image?

1. First we have to acknowledge that even if we were able to record every bit of information that's available from this planar view/projection (which is very unlikely), that it is not all the information that comes with the image. Being a physical object, it has thickness; it has a photographic emulsion; its emulsion is chemical and we may wish to know how it was made. Is the emulsion only blue sensitive, say a collodion emulsion, or is it new enough to be either orthochromatic or even panchromatic? What is its physical condition, has it been damaged, or scratched, or has it been repaired, and how was it stored, .etc (as that extra (metadata) information tells us a great deal more about the image and its history than just the image itself)? Clearly, those who require this ancillary physical information are likely to be different people to say casual YouTube viewers—this is an important difference.

2. Incidentally, archivists are also concerned not just the intrinsic nature of the image itself but also aspects about the way it was viewed, its environment, etc. For example, did the original film stock have a tint or was it completely neutral? Has the film changed in color since the print was made, does it now have sepia tint? When film was first viewed, what was the brightness and color temperature of typical projector lamps of the period? This information is important as it will influence how we end up viewing the film today,

3. To capture every detail of the image requires some very stringent requirements and often it's not possible to meet them. If we attempt to capture every detail to the point that the law of diminishing returns has determined it's not worthwhile going further, we'll almost certainly never get to that point. Even today, it's almost impossible to scan even 'ancient' 35mm film to the limit of its resolution and density because scanners just don't exist that are capable of doing it in any practical way. Sure, for still images, you could use a $100k+ drum scanner that uses photomultipliers but it's a very expensive and extremely tedious and messy process. For moving images, you could use a telecine that also uses photomultipliers but I've never come across one that's capable of exceeding the limiting spatial resolution of 35mm film made circa 1900 (some of this film was remarkably sharp)! (And these days, every Telecine I've seen uses lossy compression to store images.) Sure, one with suitable specifications could be made to order I suppose but I hate to think of the cost (the fact is most people just don't need to reproduce every bit of info that's on film)! That said, the film may not even be the limiting factor, the image itself could be out of focus or otherwise deteriorated (but you have to allow for best case).

4. With still images, when scanning, you need to consider the limiting spatial resolution of the film as well as consider the Nyquist limit of the film/scanning combination. For images, this can be a complex matter (especially movies) but theoretically an ideal scanner should have around double the resolution of the image (it's essentially the same reason why 44.1kHz is used in CDs to record audio that only goes to 20kHz). Again, no scanner that I know of outside drum scanners comes even close to these figures).

5. Therefore, from the outset we have to compromise. Whether current-day best performance is satisfactory for most archivists is moot. I'd suggest, given the chance, that almost every archivist would keep the original film after scanning so that at a later time a better facsimile can be made. Of course, with disintegrating nitrate film this is not likely.

6. OK, we have the best photographic reproduction we can muster, so what comes next? First this, true-as-is-possible image is the master copy and it must be distinguished as such from any later reproduction that 'enhances' the image in any way—irrespective of reason. There should be no argument whatsoever about this (I doubt you'd ever find a respectable archivist who would disagree with this logic.)

6. I see no objection to image enhancement so long as it is made clear that the image is enhanced and that it not the original or master copy. It's a big subject so I'll try to keep matters short here. Essentially, the future of image enhancement has hardly begun. In future expect to see images such as those horrible 16mm grainy WWI battlefield scenes come to life with enormously enhanced resolution as well as having accurate 'true' color—color that's calibrated to real-world object.

7. AI will make this possible by 'learning' the properties of the objects in these old movies then applying new data to the existing images. Moreover, it's already beginning to do so now. What about the accuracy of the color you ask when we had none to start with. In short, AI will scan millions upon millions of objects including thousands of items from WWI and it will do so in color and in high resolution and even in 3D. To reduce noise and film grain, it will also scan multiple instances of the same footage and compare side-by-side frames both within and across films (and also from other source material such as related hi-res B&W photos—for example, Frank Hurley's famous, wonderfully-sharp plate camera photos of WWI). It will then match and analyze all this information to provide both stunning and realistic images. But as I said, these are not the originals, and they serve a completely different purpose altogether!

There's much more to this story (such as making almost flawless copies of famous paintings including using identical paint pigments, paint textures and brushstrokes as well as keeping existing damage and crazing marks for reproduction authenticity). This technology will act as a means of insurance against damage, loss etc. but I've not time to cover more about it here.