The Secret History of Star Wars has a great, very in-depth article about the restoration process the films went through for their re-release in 1997 (was it really that long ago?!) but it’s equally an interesting insight into the technical process of prints and negatives and what-not that most people are unfamiliar with.
The original negative is the master copy from which all other copies are made from. It is made out of the original pieces of film which went through the camera itself on the set. This makes it very precious–any damage done to the negative means that the damage will be permanent and undoable, so it is handled as little as possible, and under carefully controlled lab conditions. From this raw footage, a copy is made for the editor to work with, so that the original camera negatives are not handled. The editor then makes his edit using this copy (the workprint). When he or she is done, the workprint is passed on to the lab. The editor’s copy is made out of different shots put together (with tape, literally), and now this must be replicated precisely using the high-quality originals. This is accomplished by use of edge-coding–each frame of film has a code printed on it that the laboratory can reference. A person called a negative cutter then takes the original negatives–the original camera negatives–and carefully cuts portions out that correspond to the cuts on the workprint; by using the edge-coding, he or she can make sure that this replica is made of exactly the same shots and frames as the editor has indicated.
via Binary Bonsai
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