In today’s digital era people shoot far more pictures than ever before, but the percentage they print out has plummeted to an all-time low. That’s because sharing images via email, text message, or social media platforms is for more efficient than making prints, and the cost is virtually nil. However there is something incredibly fulfilling and special about printing out your best shots and hanging them on the wall, or bringing a compact portable printer to a social event and handing your friends and relatives a priceless visual memento of the festivities they can cherish forever. Printing your photos is also a great way to select and preserve images that would otherwise get “lost” in a stack of memory cards or in the silicon graveyard of a backup solid state hard drive. We’ve selected an even dozen printers in the $50-$500 range.
10 Great Ways To Print Your Pictures
Canon PIXMA PRO-100
Adorama price:
This color inkjet wireless photo printer delivers hi-res 4800 x 2400 dpi output with ink droplets as small as 3 picoliters using Canon’s advanced ChromaLife 100+ dye-based 8-cartridge ink system that includes 3 monochrome inks. It produces prints up to 13×19 of excellent technical quality with saturated colors and rich blacks and grays, along with impressive speed and it’s compatible with a wide range of papers including glossy, luster, matte, Museum Etching and a variety of fine art papers. It can also print directly on CDs ands DVDs, enables computer-free printing via PictBridge, and provides WiFi connectivity allowing multiple users to print from remote locations. It can print a full color 8×10 in only 51 sec, and an 11×14 in 1 min, 30 sec.
Epson SureColor P600 Inkjet Printer
Adorama price: $714.00 ($250 mail-in rebate available)
Able to produce exhibition prints up to 13 x 129 inches or borderless prints from 3.5 x 5 to 13×19 inches, this advanced printer delivers an impressive maximum resolution of 5760 x 1440 dpi and uses a set of 9 UltraChrome ink cartridges to yield prints of exceptional color fidelity as well as excellent black-and-white output. A roll holder allows the use of long pape3r rolls up to 132 inches wide and a built-in auto-switching system automatically selects either matte or photo black ink for greater efficiency. Other features: A 3.5-inch tilting LCD on the front panel for adjusting settings and checking printer status, a top-loading feeder and a front media path for accommodating specialty media, roll holders, DVDs and CDs, and roll holders, and USB 2.0, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi connectivity for maximum flexibility.
HP Officejet 7110 Wide Format Wireless Color Inkjet
Adorama price: $200.49
This sleek economical unit can produce borderless high-quality prints in sizes ranging from 3 x 5 to 13 x 19 inches, print sizes to 13 x 44 inches with a roll holder, and provides wireless printing and networking via 2.4 GHz routers only. It delivers a resolution of 4800 x 1200 dpi when printing color, uses a 4-ink set (black, cyan, magenta, and yellow) and it’s robust enough to print 12,000 pages per month reliably. The 7110 has a maximum printing speed of 29 ppm for Color and 33 ppm for black-and white at smaller print sizes, and it’s compatible with HP ePrint and Apple AirPrint.
Canon SELPHY CP910 Wireless Compact Photo Printer
Adorama price: $84.99 (black or white)
This cute, competent, compact dye-sub printer is optimized for portability and printing on the go. It provides Wi-Fi connectivity for printing from a computer or mobile device can print directly using AirPrint of PictBridge to send images to your device or to an access point, and has a USB port and SD card slot for uploading images. The CP910 can turn out a borderless 4 x 6 print at a resolution of 300 x 300 dpi in 47 sec and can also print 2.1 x 3.4-inch cards. It uses paper cartridges and the prints are said to last 100 tears.
Epson Artisan 1430 Wireless Color Inkjet Printer
Adorama price: $280.96
Using Epson’s MicroPiezo inkjet technology and Claria high-definition ink, this high-performance printer has a wide carriage that lets you turn out large photos up to 13 x 44 inches, and borderless prints up to 13 x 19 inches at a 5760 x 1440 optimized dpi resolution using 6 individual ink cartridges. It’s Wi-Fi enabled so you can print directly from mobile devices, via its front-facing USB port using the PictBridge system, or directly on CDs and DVDs. Its ink droplet size is only 1.5 pico-liters, yielding images of exceptional detail, and it provides a fast ISO printing speed up to 2.8 ppm.
Epson Expression Home-XP-420 Small-In-One Inkjet
Adorama price: $49.99
This is the only all-in-one unit in our 10-printer roundup, and we included it because it delivers a lot of features and value for not much money and it’s just plain cute although it’s a bit too large (18 x 15 x 7 inches) to fit in the average camera bag. It can scan or copy documents or prints up to 8.5 x 11.7 inches at a resolution of 1200 dpi, make prints up to 8.5 x 44 inches at a resolution of 5760 x 1440 dpi, and uses a set of 4 DURABrite Ultra Pigment-Based inks to deliver vivid prints of archival quality. Other features: USB 2.0 and Wi-Fi connectivity compatible with Apple AirPrint and Google Cloud Print, a 2.5-inch Touchscreen KCD, and an SD Card Slot.
Canon Pixma iP8720 Wireless Inkjet Photo Printer
Adorama price:
This attractive full-features printer can turn out a 4 x 6 print in only 36 sec, and it also can produce ultra-hi-res 9600 x 2400 dpi borderless prints up to 13 x 19 inches, and has a 150-sgeet auto feeder to enable printing at 14.5 inches per minute in black-and-white and 10.4 ipm in color. Its 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity enables wide variety of wireless printing options, and it uses 6 ChromaLife100+ color inks including gray to provide excellent tonal gradation and vibrant color reproduction. Other features: Auto power on/off settings, ability to pring on CD/DVD and Blu-ray discs, full-photolithography Inkjet Nozzle Engineering (FINE) that produces droplets as small as 1 picoliter for excellent detail. It’s compatible with the PIXMA Printing Solutions App.
Fujifilm Instax SHARE Smartphone Printer SP-1
Adorama price: $138.00
As its name implies this little beauty is designed to print out photos from a smartphone or tablet on Fujifilm’s Instax Mini Color Film using Fujifilm’s free Instax SHARE app. The film comes in a 10-pack and the image size is 2.4 x 1.8 inches. There’s a reprint button for making additional copies, a choice of black-and-white and sepia filters, and you can upload the images wirelessly to social networking sites using compatible smartphones. The ingenious device employs 3-color (RGB) LEDs and a liquid crystal shutter to record the image.
HP Officejet Pro 8100 Wireless Color Inkjet ePrinter
Adorama price: $99.99
This cool compact unit can turn out borderless prints up to 8.5 x 11 inches using a 4-ink CMYK pigmented ink set and it’s designed for heavy-duty use—up to 25,000 pages per month. It also provides numerous connectivity options, including a USB 2.0 port, wired Ethernet, and Wi-Fi, and you can print directly from mobile devices, download the HP ePrint app or use AirPrint. Resolution is 600 dpi black and 1200 dpi color; printing speed (ISO) is 20 ppm in black-and-white, 16 ppm in color; and the unit has 128 MB of internal memory.
Impossible Instant Lab 2.0 Universal
Adorama price: $249.00
And no for something completely different. This ingenious collapsible device is designed for printing images from your iPhone or iPad by capturing them as classic Polaroid-style photos. Working with the Impossible Project iOS app, it works like a traditional darkroom, exposing the images on your screen and capturing them on Polaroid-format instant film. The foldable, portable device “connects pixels to reality” through chemistry. Andif you want to share your printed creations online, the app also features a scanner so you can transfer and share them digitally as well.
