Toolbox: 10 Awesome Photo PrintersFrom big display prints to fast proofs and everything in between, there’s a photo printer that’s made for the job |
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It’s All About The Picoliters. With inkjet printers, the size of the ink droplets is more important than how many dots per inch. For accurate rendering of subject textures like wood, fabric and skin, as well as smooth transitions from light to shadow, a size of five picoliters or smaller is what you need. The Number Of Colors. Some inkjet printers use as few as three colors, some use as many as 12. Generally, the more inks in a set means improved color rendition in the overall print. The color gamut is expanded so the printer can reproduce subtler shades of a wider range of colors. Ink sets that have two or more cartridges for the black inks are going to produce better black-and-white prints than a printer with only one ink cartridge for black. Ink Longevity. The qualities of the ink will vary slightly, but they’re all very good these days. Whether dye-based or pigment-based, they’ll last longer than the ink of a typical lab print. The inks of most major brands are reported to be smudge-, water- and fade-resistant up to 98 years or longer when applied to their recommended photo papers. Print stability varies depending on display conditions, humidity and atmospheric conditions. Frame and display prints behind UV glass or non-glare UV acrylic for added longevity. Print Head Speed. If you’re not a patient person or need to make a lot of prints quickly, the speed of the print head is certainly something to consider. Print times between manufacturers vary the most for larger prints (11x17 and 13x19 inches). It can take anywhere from 1.5 to 5 minutes, and sometimes longer, to produce oversized prints in best-quality mode. Image Resolution Versus Print Resolution. As a general rule, a printer resolution of 1440 dpi is all you need, as the human eye can’t perceive a resolution higher than that. Most, if not all, of the printers on the market have a print resolution that high. There’s a catch, though. The prints will only be as good as the images—the exposure, the size of the image file and the megapixels of the camera that captured them. Large-format printers (13x19 inches and up) perform best with images captured on a 6-megapixel camera or higher. For standard-format (8½x11 inches) and compact or mini-printers (4x6 inches), a 4-megapixel camera or better will do the job.   |
Choosing the best photo printer for your needs may mean choosing more than one printer. We’ve come a long way from the one-size-fits-all office inkjets—with specialty photo printers ranging from fast and portable mini-printers for quick proofs and 4x6s to pro-quality, large-format printers for making frame-worthy display prints.
