Friday, December 11, 2020

 

 

The 8 Best Photo Printers For Casual Snapshots And Serious Photographers

 Tags: Canon Pixma, HP, Fujifilm, Epson Printer,

 

 

 by:  Dave Johnson Dave Johnson 

 Canon Pixma TS8320 photo printer in black

 

 

There was a time when photos were synonymous with prints, but since the decline of film cameras, it’s far more common to experience photos on a phone or PC screen and rarely, if ever, print them. That’s too bad, because photos need to live in the real world, on paper, to be fully appreciated. The best photo printers can transform your photos into high-quality prints suitable for use in the office or at home for framing or sharing with family.

Virtually any printer can generate decent photo prints, but dedicated photo printers can create prints with richer, more accurate colors and better dynamic range. They come in all shapes and sizes, from standard letter size to wide-format to, well, very wide format. Printers also go small; you can get photo printers that spit out small 2.4-inch-square prints, ideal for printing snapshots from your phone. No matter what you’re looking for, there’s something here for you. We’ve rounded up 8 of the best photos printers available today.

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Best Letter-Size Photo Printer

Canon PIXMA TS8320 All-In-One Inkjet Printer

Canon PIXMA TS8320 All-In-One Inkjet Printer

$179

This six-ink consumer-priced photo printer punches well above its weight, able to make prints that can satisfy pro photographers as well as enthusiasts. In addition to the usual CMYK color cartridges, the TS8320’s pigment black cartridge creates truer blacks and shadows, and the photo blue ink increases color range in a part of the spectrum the human eye is particularly sensitive to.

The printer has a convenient and easy-to-use color touchscreen control panel, and a pair of 100-sheet paper trays means you can go a long while between handling paper (it also does full-duplex 2-sided printing). There’s an additional rear tray for printing on specialty paper and directly onto compatible optical discs. As an added bonus, you can even give the printer voice commands via Alexa or Google Assistant. Truly, an all-in-one printer.

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Best 13-inch Wide-Format Photo Printer

Epson SureColor P700

Epson SureColor P700 13-Inch Printer

$2101

The Epson SureColor P700 straddles an interesting line—it’s on the pricey but affordable side for photo enthusiasts, but almost a bargain for professionals. It’s a great printer for both kinds of users. It features sophisticated printheads capable of dispersing droplets as small as 1.5 picoliters (which is very small) and it uses UltraChrome Pro Ink, a massive array of ten ink cartridges to achieve a wide color gamut. That includes separate black inks for matte and glossy photo printing, so you don’t have to swap inks when changing paper types.

The 13-inch wide printer can handle both cut sheets and roll media, which means it can make very long custom aspect ratio photos like panoramas—something very few other printers in this price range can handle. It also has a color-calibrated touchscreen display that can take on some basic photo editing tasks without resorting to Photoshop.

Best 17-inch Large Format Photo Printer

Epson SureColor P800

Epson SureColor P800 17" Inkjet Color Printer

$2453 - $2999

It carries a considerable price tag, but the SureColor P800 is about as versatile as photo printers come, and ideal for serious creators who need to print their visions on very large paper and a variety of fine art materials. It’s capable of 17-inch-wide cut sheets (maximum size: 17x22-inches) and rolls up to 17 inches x 10 feet long.

A front input tray can accommodate poster board and other fine art media, so you aren’t limited to printing on the ordinary photo paper options. The printer uses eight high-capacity (80 mL) UltraChrome HD ink cartridges for a very wide color gamut, including three levels of black designed expressly for capturing highly nuanced black & white prints.

Best Budget Photo Printer

HP ENVY 6055 Wireless All-in-One Printer

HP ENVY 6055 Wireless All-in-One Printer

$129 - $159

Even for photo printing, you don’t have to spend a fortune for a high-performance photo printer. This isn’t going to satisfy a pro, but it creates surprisingly good prints for home users and photo enthusiasts on a budget—especially notable since it has just four colors (black and a three-ink combination cartridge).

Even better, it’s an all-in-one system that also scans and copies. You can also save additional money with this printer if you make a lot of prints; if you subscribe to HP’s very affordable automatic ink delivery service, you can get replacement cartridges delivered automatically by mail, and the first two months are free.

Best Borderless Photo Printer

Canon IP8720 Wireless Printer

Canon IP8720 Wireless Printer

$249$299SAVE $50 (17%)

Not many printers are capable of making truly edge-to-edge borderless prints, so if that’s something you need, a printer like the Canon IP8720 can be worth its weight in gold. This printer can make borderless prints up to 13x19-inches in size. It uses a 6-ink cartridge system (CMYK plus pigment black and gray that are designed specifically for black and white photos) with a printhead capable of droplets as small as 1 picoliter.

In addition to Wi-Fi and AirPrint, the IP7820 has some other handy features, like the ability to print directly on optical discs and Canon’s unique Full HD Movie Print, which can make prints from video clips captured with select Canon SLR and point-and-shoot cameras.

Best Instant Photo Printer

Fujifilm Instax SP-3 Mobile Printer

Fujifilm Instax SP-3 Mobile Printer

$93 - $169

If the name Instax sounds familiar to you, it’s because it’s the brand name of popular instant film cameras that are the modern equivalent of old Polaroid and Kodak cameras. The Instax SP-3 is a printer that creates 2.4-inch-square prints from photos on your phone or other mobile device. It’s also portable; powered by a rechargeable battery, the compact 11-ounce printer can go anywhere.

This is not an inkjet printer; the Instax is making real photo prints from instant film, the photos sent from your device via Wi-Fi. The printer is fast—prints only take about 13 seconds—and the print has a Polaroid-like border for a retro look. This is great for casual photo sharing and quickly displaying prints that would otherwise be trapped on your phone.

Best Smart Photo Printer

HP Tango X

HP Tango X Smart Wireless Printer

$199

The Tango X by HP is a thoroughly modern photo printer. When it’s not in use, it closes up inside a fabric wrap that makes it look more like a book than a printer, so if you don’t like electronics on display, you’ll like this gadget. And when it’s in printing mode, you can control it by voice using Alexa or Google Assistant, and even “program” it with specific behaviors using IFTTT, or If This Then That—a popular easy-to-use automation service for smart home devices. For example, you could teach it to automatically print your phone’s newest photos when you come home, or to print a certain document every morning at the start of your day.

Your prints are limited to 5x7 inches, so this is useful as a dedicated photo printer, but can’t really play the role of your only home printer. Nonetheless, it makes great looking photos and can handle text document tasks too in a pinch, as long as you’re good with the print size.

Best Ink Tank Photo Printer

Canon PIXMA MegaTank G7020 All-In-One Inkjet Printer

Canon PIXMA MegaTank G7020 All-In-One Inkjet Printer

$349

The Achilles’ Heel of any inkjet printer is the ink cost. Not only do the ink cartridges run low quickly, but they cost a small fortune to replace—often outstripping the cost of the original printer in just a few refills. That’s not the case with the Canon PIXMA MegaTank G7020, built around Canon’s MegaTank refillable ink tank standard. The ink is cheap enough that it drops the cost of prints to about as penny each. It has four easily serviceable tanks and you can clearly see the level from the front of the printer.

The printer also happens to be a multifunction device, so you can use it as your all-around office workhorse as a copier, scanner, printer and even fax if you’re still hanging onto that for dear life. It holds up to 350 sheets of paper with a dedicated feed for small-format photo paper for printing snapshots and does a great job printing photos, especially considering the budget-focused ink tank. And don’t worry about running out of ink for normal document printing; there’s enough black ink in the box for 18,000 pages.  Share this article.



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