The Digital Photography
Consumer Review

What To Look For In Photo Printers

Digital photography allows you to have total control over the photos that you take, and that includes the final output from your digital photo printer.And the good news is that photo printers are so good these days that even the most inexpensive models can turn out an incredibly sharp photo that rivals anything you could get from a film lab. So let's discuss the kind of photo printers that are available and how to choose and use them to save money.

First of all, it's pretty much a given that inkjet printers are the equipment of choice when it comes to photo printing at this point. Laser printers are still great for printing black and white documents quickly and cheaply, but injets get the nod for color. They use small droplets of ink that are sprayed onto the paper to form the overall shape of the text or picture being printed. The cheaper inkjet photo printers have a combination color cartridge that typically includes three colors, cyan, magenta, and yellow all in the same cartridge. The more expensive and higher quality photo prnters use a separate color cartridge for each color, even up to utilizing seven or eight cartridges to make up it's color range. Prices on photo printers vary considerably from $50 on up to $600 - $700 or so. Of course, as with most electronics items, you can usually find them at a significant discount if you look hard enough online.

There are also small injet printers that are designed to only print 4X6 snapshots straight from your digital camera too. These are very convenient, but offer little capability beyond just photo snapshots. Most often you can plug your digital camera directly into these specialty photo printers and print straight from the camera. If you don't care to edit your photos yourself this may be the way to go and these printers often cost between $100 - $300 or so.

Of course, keep in mind that many regular injet photo printers also allow connecting the camera directly to the printer through what is called a PictBridge connection. So you may be able to get flexibilty and convenience in the same printer if you choose one of these.

A very important consideration for injet printers is not necessarily the initial cost, but the ongoing cartridge replacement costs instead. This is where the printer companies try to make their most money. So before you buy, research the model of printer that you are considering and find out how often you will have to replace the cartridges and how much they will cost when you do. That will give you a more accurate idea of the true cost of operating that printer. And for the best photo results, always use the photo paper that is recommended by the manufacturer, even if it costs a little more.

Some of the highest rated photo printers are the Hewlett-Packard Deskjet 6540, the Canon P4200, and the Canon Pixma iP4000. If you examine many of the online consumer reviews for inkjet photo printers you will often see these models very close to the top of the list for both performance and quality.