It's important to use quality photo inkjet printers for photos. That is one of the keys to attaining good digital prints. You can find excellent ones at very reasonably prices.




When deciding which to buy, some of the things you can look at and compare are the following:

Types of Color Printers
Ink jet printers are the most popular for photo printing. To go up one step, consider an inkjet "photo printer". These are regular printers designed specifically for photos. However, you can still produce great black and white photos. I have one of the Canon Pixma Photo Printers, which is excellent for both types of printing.

Printer Resolution
This is designated in dots per square inch, or dpi. The more dots of ink the printer emits on the printing paper, the better. So just know to compare dpi, and go with the higher numbers.

Inkjet Printer Ink
Most of the newer photo inkjet printers, and even the multifunctional inkjet printers, come with multiple ink cartridges. It used to be that all ink colors came in one cartridge. Now, however, a printer might have 4, 5 or 6 different colors, each in their own cartridge. The advantage to this is that you only have to replace that color if you are low or run out of printer ink.

The more colors, the better. In addition, some printers have two separate black cartridges, due to text printing.

Photo Inkjet Printers & Speed
Photo or text printing speed refers to how many pages per minute will be printed. Higher dpi numbers are associated with faster printing. Photos always print out slower than text due to all of the color that has to be applied.

Color And Sharpness
Although there are typically color adjustments that can be made in your printer utilities, some photo inkjet printers produce better color results than others. If you buy a quality printer from a top company, you should not have any major problems. Text sharpness and crispness varies also.

It's a good idea to do a test print if you are purchasing from a store to compare inkjet printers and the print quality.

Multifunction Inkjet Printers
Many of these printers can print, scan, fax, and copy. Some do just a couple of these functions. Compare the dpi, number of ink cartridges, etc. to see how they compare to other all in one inkjet printers, regular inkjet printers, and photo printers.

These are often improved over an older printer you might be replacing and work fine for you.

Multifunction inkjet printers are certainly space savers. You just need one machine rather than separate ones for scanning, faxing, and copying. I recently bought the Canon MX850 which does everything, including fax. What a pleasure....one machine, one table and just two wires!

Which To Choose

Canon, Hewlett Packard (HP), and Epson all make good printers. If you ask a dozen people which they prefer, you will get a variety of answers as it depends on their experience.

I started out with HP, which was just OK. I then moved on to Epson. I loved the quality, but the nozzles kept on getting clogged. I then bought a great Canon Pixma printer, which I had for quite a few years. As mentioned above, I am now using an excellent multifunction machine.

My experience with Canon inkjet printers has been very good. I have found them to produce excellent results in both photo and text printing, and I have had no problems. What more can you ask for?