Are home photo printers really worth it?

Any printer can print photos. Even a black-and-white laser can produce hard copies of your holiday snaps, though they might come out looking a bit drab. As HP Tech Takes contributor Linsey Knerl points out: “You can, in theory, use almost any home printer to create black-and-white or colour prints.”

Home photo printers, though, are specifically engineered to give you the best-quality photo output. They’re almost always inkjets, as mixing dye-based inks allows them to create perfect colour blends and tones, something laser printers, with their powder-based toners, struggle to achieve. Indeed, photo printers often use a wider range of colour cartridges than a regular desktop printer, to ensure you get rich, accurate colours.

The biggest manufacturers of photo printers are Canon, Epson and HP; between them they offer dozens of different models, and even the low-cost ones can produce image quality that rivals what you’d get from a dedicated print shop. As professional photographer Dave Stevenson tells us, “there’s not really a bad one out there; if something is marketed as a photo printer, you can expect to get lab-quality results.”

As well as printing photos, you’re perfectly able to feed your photo printer with plain paper and use it to print out regular documents. Epson product manager Alice Ramden de Gómez says: “We find that many people who have bought a photo printer also use it for normal document printing.” Many upmarket models include a pigment black cartridge that works just like the regular black ink in a standard desktop printer, allowing you to produce bold, fade-resistant documents.

If you’re not sure what sort of printer to buy, the excellent image quality and versatility of a photo printer can be very attractive, but there are some points you should consider before making a purchase.

Will a home photo printer save you money?

Photo printers can be very affordable – our best home photo printers start at just £90 – but they still tend to be more expensive than a standard desktop printer. On top of that, the ink cartridges may be not only more numerous, but also more expensive, with a complete set of five or six different cartridges potentially running to around £75 in total. To get the best results you’ll also want to be printing on glossy photographic paper, which is a lot pricier than regular A4.

Once you’re set up, though, the printing costs can be attractively low. The precise cost per page depends very much on the model you choose, but if you invest in an ink-tank model, then ink costs can be less than a penny for a 6x4in print, meaning you could save money compared to sending your photographs to a third-party service.

“It depends on how many prints you’re normally sending off to external print suppliers,” explains Alice Ramsden de Gómez. “You’ve got to work out your own comparison to see what would work best.” If you’re regularly having dozens of images printed at – say – 10p per print, plus a fiver for postage, a home printer could be a smart investment.

Owning your own printer can also help you print more efficiently by allowing you to try out small test prints with different settings and styles. There’s no risk of making an expensive mistake with a large remote printing order.

It’s important to remember, however, that if an inkjet printer isn’t used regularly, the ink can dry up and the nozzles can get jammed. Ideally, you should be printing something at least once every few weeks, just to keep everything moving. The thing you print doesn’t necessarily have to be a photo – as noted, your photo printer can perfectly well print out spreadsheets and emails – but whatever you print, you’ll be using ink, so factor that into your calculation.

Other benefits of a home photo printer

Many online print services offer next-day delivery, but they can’t provide while-you-wait results; with your own photo printer, you get prints whenever you want them. This isn’t just great for the impatient, it also makes it much more practical to experiment with different colour settings or designs. As Dave Stevenson points out, “if you want to be able to do your own proofs without waiting for someone to deliver test prints to your house, having your own printer is ideal”.

Photo printers are often more versatile than standard desktop printers, too. As printer specialist Printerbase describes: “These printers aren’t limited to standard-weight photo papers, and they support all finishes of media including matt, gloss, lustre, satin, fine art paper and in some cases even canvas. This is ideal for craft applications such as creating custom stationery, wedding invitations and other artworks.”

As well as photos, a photo printer can produce other types of high-quality visual output; HP’s Linsey Knerl suggests a photo printer could be perfect for producing marketing materials, newsletters, brochures or even art portfolios.

Is a home photo printer worth buying?

Retailer, Lee Grant, director of Huddersfield-based Inspiration Computers, advises plenty of printer buyers, and he always recommends that they carefully weigh up their needs before choosing a photo printer. “Photo printers are fabulous if you’re serious about your photos,” he says, “but if you only want to print occasionally, an online service can often save you a lot of money, compared to buying your own photo printer.”

“Using more cartridges gives you better colour reproduction, but every time you add another colour, that’s another cartridge that you need to buy. If you’re using your photo printer just to print a shopping list or a bit of homework, that all goes to waste. And it really is a waste, because every time you start your printer up, a little bit of ink is zapped out of the cartridges and into the waste tank.”

It all boils down to how much you value being able to get your prints immediately, and whether you print enough to justify the investment. As Dave Stevenson confirms: “Once you consider the cost of getting the printer, and the paper, and the ink, you need to be turning out quite a lot of prints before it works out cheaper than getting it done by somebody else.”