Why is the gamut of flatbed scanner profiles so wide?

[Patrick_Herold]

I thought this topic sounded familar. Another user was asking about scanner profiling a few weeks ago under the ColorValet topic heading, and I went into our scanner profiling service at some depth.

[one.imports.literateforums.com/t/scanner-profiling-colorvalet/338/1)

Scan profiles are a bit tricky,
since ideally the building of the profile will involve some
extrapolation of color handling that goes beyond the target gamut.
( You don’t want your scanner gamut to be limited to the colors on
that one target do you? Scanners can scan anything. How would you
get the florescent green highlighter that your kid’s teacher used to
highlight that “A” on Johnny’s report card to be color-accurate when
you scan it to preserve for all eternity?)

This might explain why you see different results from different
profiling software packages - something you were asking about in
another post. Some systems we’ve seen create scanner profiles
bounded by the color gamut of the target. This also explains why the
volume of a scanner profile (GretagMacbeth) can be bigger than the
target that you used to create it - as well as bigger than the
profile of the printer you used to print the target.