Canon LabelStream 4000 Series becomes first PANTONE® Capable certified UV inkjet label press

Canon today announces that the LabelStream 4000 series is the first UV inkjet press to have been certified ‘PANTONE® Capable’ by PANTONE LLC, having assessed the press’s colour gamut relative to the full range of PANTONE® colours.

The certificate confirms that, with the LabelStream 4000, customers can reliably and consistently produce an exceptionally wide range of PANTONE® colours.

The PANTONE® Capable certificate acknowledges that the LabelStream 4000 series, a four to six-colour, industrial-scale, UV inkjet label press can cover 1,740 (81.3%) of the 2,140 PANTONE® Solid Formula Guide coated colours, using the 5-colour CMYKO ink set, by adopting a Delta E 2000 < 1.5 absolute tolerance. Applying a Delta E of 2, enables label converters to extend the PANTONE® colour coverage to 96% with only five on-press colours.

Using Xaar 2001 printhead technology, the LabelStream 4000 series deploys a highly pigmented ink set to enlarge the colour gamut and deliver an improved level of colour vibrancy and saturation. Thanks to the recently introduced orange ink channel, customers can further extend the CMYK gamut in the yellow, red and orange areas without compromising print speed or reliability and achieve consistent high-quality output.

The certification verifies that converters can now accurately simulate and digitally print an extensive number of colours on the LabelStream 4000, confidently meeting customer demands for consistency and quality, and opening up new application opportunities. Such accurately matched colours will also support the ongoing transition from conventional to digital production by eliminating the need for lengthy set-up processes to replicate colours that may have previously been out of scope.

Crit Driessen, VP and Head of Digital Packaging, Canon Production Printing, comments: “When we introduced the LabelStream 4000, we were confident that the press surpassed the capabilities of many conventional and digital presses to accurately depict a large range of spot colours. With this Pantone Capable certificate, our customers can have the same confidence that, with its achievable colour gamut and performance, the LabelStream will reliably deliver the print quality and productivity needed for a sustainable digital label business.”

In 2020, the LabelStream 4000 was also acknowledged by the German Fogra Research Institute for Media Technology as the first multicolour digital press to be certified according to the Process Standard Digital (PSD) Print Check based on the Fogra 55 7-colour reference gamut.