The 10 Best Photo Printers

People who print lots of photos will save over time with the Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550, which costs a lot up front and little to run. It fills six tanks from bottles, so a borderless 4x6 costs pennies. It prints up to 13-by-19-inch sheets, takes thick cardstock and also scans. RTINGS scored its photos highly but found a few colors off, and like any tank printer, it can clog if left unused for weeks.

Family photos look smooth from the Epson Expression Photo XP-8800, a letter-size all-in-one with six inks, including light cyan and light magenta for softer skin tones and skies. Plain and photo paper sit in separate trays, a rear slot takes thicker sheets, and a scanner and touchscreen are built in. The catch is ink: the small cartridges make each photo costly, and text pages print a little slowly.

Photographers who care how prints age and look on art paper should consider the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-310. Its nine pigment inks, with both matte and photo black, resist fading and suit matte fine-art paper, and a clear coat evens out the gloss. It prints borderless up to 13-by-19-inch sheets over Wi-Fi. It doesn't scan, it's slow with documents, and it uses ten small cartridges, with the matte black running out quickly.

Kiosk-style 4x6 prints come out of the Canon SELPHY CP1500, which uses heat to move color from a ribbon onto the paper and adds a clear coat, so each print is dry and water resistant. It prints from phones, memory cards and cameras, and its screen lets you crop and add filters without a computer. Paper packs set a fixed cost per print, and the battery for printing on the go costs extra.

Phone photos become small sticker prints in the Canon Ivy 2, a pocket printer whose special paper holds color crystals that heat brings out, so there's no ink or ribbon to replace. The prints peel off to stick anywhere, it runs on a built-in rechargeable battery, and it pairs with a phone app. Each print takes up to 50 seconds. Colors look softer and less vivid than ink prints, and the paper isn't cheap for such small pictures.

Big borderless prints without a big outlay are the draw of the Epson Expression Photo HD XP-15000, which handles 13-by-19-inch sheets. Its six inks include red and gray, which widen the color range and keep black-and-white prints neutral. A rear tray takes cardstock, and a front tray holds plain paper for two-sided documents. It doesn't scan or copy, the small cartridges run dry fast on big prints, and Epson won't cover damage from off-brand ink.

Fans of instant photos can turn phone pictures into real film prints with the Fujifilm Instax Mini Link 3, which makes the credit-card-size prints with a white border. Its app adds frames, filters and collages, including a photo-booth mode that combines six shots. It charges over USB-C, fits in a bag, and this bundle includes a 10-sheet pack of film. The pictures are small and short on detail, and film costs add up quickly at parties.

The HP Envy Photo 7975 suits a busy family desk: it's an all-in-one with a separate photo tray that keeps photo paper loaded, so you don't swap stacks to print a borderless snapshot. It also has a document feeder, a scanner, two-sided printing and a color touchscreen. It uses four inks, so gradients and skin tones can look less smooth, and HP's security feature can block cartridges with non-HP chips.

Your phone sits in a cradle on top of the Kodak Dock Plus, which lays down each color in a separate pass and then adds a clear coat that helps 4x6 prints resist fingerprints and water. A print takes about a minute, and this bundle comes with 50 sheets. A Korean company builds it under the Kodak name. Paper can jam, units can fail early, and prints can come out lighter than they look on screen.

Made for sleepovers and parties, the HP Sprocket 2nd Edition is a pocket printer that turns phone photos into sticky-back prints with no ink involved. Several phones can connect at once and queue prints, and a colored light shows whose photo is coming out. A sleep mode keeps it ready without draining the battery, and a full charge makes about 25 prints. The colors are soft and muted, so think stickers and keepsakes rather than framed enlargements.