1. An apparatus for creating authenticatable articles, comprising: a printer driver that creates instructions for a printing device to print an image; a data acquisition interface that receives a set comprising groups of data points from a printing device comprising: a feed mechanism that conveys an article through the printing device; and a scan head that scans an article conveyed through the printing device by the feed mechanism, the scan head comprising: a coherent source that emits light as an article is conveyed past the scan head by the feed mechanism so as to sequentially illuminate a plurality of regions of an article; and a detector arrangement that detects light scattered from surface structure of the article so as to collect a set comprising groups of data points wherein each of the groups of data points relates to scatter caused by surface structure from the respective different regions of the surface of the article; and a processor that processes the set of groups of data points to determine a digital signature of the article and processes the digital signature to determine a printable label pattern that encodes the digital signature according to a machine-readable encoding protocol; and wherein the printer driver further creates instructions for the printing device to print the label pattern onto the article.