Choosing a photo printer: what to look for | Articles | Photo, video, optics

The right print­er can turn your pho­tos into works of art that you can touch. If you are inter­est­ed pho­to print­erbut you don’t know where to start, here are some of the key points to keep in mind.

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Inkjet printer or sublimation

Inkjet print­ers are suit­able for home pho­to print­ing — they are rel­a­tive­ly inex­pen­sive, easy to use and quite reli­able. The ink car­tridges are easy to replace, and you can use var­i­ous types of pho­to paper. In addi­tion, most inkjet print­ers pro­duce high res­o­lu­tion images. Most pho­to print­ers on the mar­ket today are inkjet print­ers.

A sub­li­ma­tion print­er is usu­al­ly designed for pro­fes­sion­al use. It is able to print small high qual­i­ty col­or pho­tos very quick­ly. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, sub­li­ma­tion print­ers work with few­er paper types and sizes. In most cas­es, home sub­li­ma­tion print­ers are lim­it­ed to print­ing small pho­tos on glossy paper.

Print size and adjustments

When pur­chas­ing a home pho­to print­er, it is impor­tant to make sure that your print­er can print both small and large pho­tos. Large for­mat print­ers are expen­sive, expen­sive to main­tain, and require more ink car­tridges than small­er print­ers. For this rea­son, large for­mat print­ing is not very suit­able for home use.

A good home pho­to print­er will allow you to print medi­um to large size images with­out using a lot of ink or expen­sive equip­ment. A max­i­mum paper width of 13 to 15 inch­es will allow you to cre­ate pho­tos of dif­fer­ent sizes at home. Many print­ers accept paper rolls so you can print panora­mas.

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Print resolution and quality inks

Print­er man­u­fac­tur­ers use the term archival, that is, “archival”, and guar­an­tee the life of images 50–100 years. If you’re invest­ing in a pho­to print­er, you want the pho­tos you cre­ate to last.

Archival print­ing typ­i­cal­ly uses long-last­ing pig­ment-based inks rather than dyes. This extends the life of the inks because the inks have a much short­er life and less light fast­ness. By choos­ing an archival pig­ment print­er, you can be sure that your images will remain safe and sound for years to come.

Print res­o­lu­tion is also an impor­tant fac­tor. Res­o­lu­tion is mea­sured in DPI (dots per inch). The high­er the DPI, the less notice­able the dots will be, and the more detailed your shots will be. Your print­er should have a res­o­lu­tion of at least 4800x1200 dpi.

Print speed

If you plan to print a lot, pay spe­cial atten­tion to the max­i­mum speed of the pho­to print­er. The equip­ment must match your print­ing needs. Wait­ing five min­utes for a pho­to to print is irrel­e­vant when you have one pho­to, but not when you have dozens of them. Some print­ers may take longer to print an image if there are many files in the queue.

Canon or Epson?

Canon and Epson are the two lead­ing pho­to print­ing brands for pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­phers and enthu­si­asts. Both offer a vari­ety of print­ers, includ­ing mul­ti­func­tion print­ers, scan­ners, copiers, and ded­i­cat­ed pho­to print­ers.

Both Canon and Epson offer excel­lent mod­els with the abil­i­ty to print high res­o­lu­tion black and white or col­or images. Ulti­mate­ly, focus on your needs and bud­get.

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