Color Control allows printers to profile their Xeikon presses and create colour tables for specific colours to enable repeatable and predictable results and the best simulation of custom spot colours.

Having printed a target, the measured values are uploaded to a central server where a new profile is created, together with a library of named colours. Both are installed on the Xeikon X-800 DFE where they can be applied to all incoming jobs.

Designed to be used exclusively with Xeikon digital presses, the cloud-based software is available under licence for a period of one to five years and costs between £3,000-£10,000.

Adrian Steele, managing director of Mercian Labels, said the colour management tool had particularly strong application within the food labelling sector, which is a critical element of the Staffordshire-based printer's business.

He said: "I think this is a genuinely innovative piece of software that people will be able to use in several different ways, including making sure that colours match on labels and business cards. Importantly, it improves consistency in a way that has not been done with digital printing before."

Head of communications for Xeikon, Frank Jacobs, revealed there had been "an excellent response" to its new system, but confirmed it had no plans to extend its software to enable compatibility with other manufacturers.

His colleague Jeroen Van Bauwel, director of product management, added: "In today’s competitive environment, print buyers are asking their suppliers for the highest quality and accurate reproduction of brand colours.

"With Xeikon Color Control, our customers have a smart and easy way to reproduce even their most complex jobs – the ones with the highest colour requirements. With minimal time and effort, they can profile their environment and ensure customer specific colours can be reproduced with the closest possible match. It’s one of those small, but powerful tools that makes our customers’ lives easier."

Steele added: "This is a really useful development enabling us to perform even better when facing colour matching challenges from our customers. Nothing will extend the physical limitations of a CMYK colour process gamut beyond its theoretical maximum, but using Xeikon Color Control we are really pushing the barriers of color matching to the limit."