Frame your favourite shots with the best printers for photos in 2024

For us, this Epson Expression Photo XP-8700 ticks all the boxes for photo printing and a bit more on top. Epson has a great and well-deserved reputation for colour accuracy and vibrancy with its printers, and this one will bring your shots to life thanks to the special Claria Photo HD six-ink system. Six individual ink cartridges mean better colour representation across the board with professional results. 

Plus, this wireless printer works with the Epson Creative Print app to make things even easier. It lets you use your photos with exciting projects like collages and photo books and tweaking your printer’s settings. Welcome additions include an SD card slot – ideal for photographers using cameras rather than smartphones – and two front-loading paper trays. Those two trays mean you can keep one loaded with A4 and the other with 4x6 photo paper for less fuss, depending on what you need to print. It’s our top pick for many good reasons – from print quality to user-friendly features.

Budget printers do, of course, come cheap - but few are as reliable and feature-packed as this one from HP. The Envy 6430e is another all-in-one model with a flatbed scanner – making it a great all-around printer choice for home offices and creatives. But the lower price tag doesn’t mean you won’t get great photo prints. It can print onto various sizes of photo paper up to A4 and print borderless for that authentic ‘just got my photos back from Boots’ look.

Once again, HP is another well-established brand with a very user-friendly Smart app that lets you print your photos directly from your mobile. And if you’re all about getting into photo printing and need to control your costs, if you sign up for the HP+ smart printing system with Instant Ink, you get three months’ worth of ink for free and an extra one-year warranty. Brilliant value.

We’ve seen a few inkjet printers moving away from the traditional CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key/Black) four-colour cartridge system and towards a 6-colour method. But this Canon PIXMA PRO-200 takes ink to the next level. It has an 8-colour system instead. Plus, it uses dye-based ink - so you can expect the colour accuracy and vibrancy you’d normally see from a photo lab.

Another important addition for any professional photographer is excellent support for various photo paper types, finishes and weights. Here, we have just that, with printing up to A3+ in size. Lastly, the Canon software you install on your computer integrates very well with popular professional image editing applications. You can adjust your shots to your heart’s content and access all of the print settings from one place for a seamless workflow.

The KODAK name is synonymous with user-friendly photography, and this Step Printer is the small and simple printer you’ve been waiting for. Designed with printing your smartphone photos in mind, it’s also a truly portable printer. You can charge it up and take it to your next family get-together or party. But that portability doesn’t mean it can’t produce great prints. Putting fun and accessibility first, this will generate  2x3" full-colour prints using Kodak Zink (Zero Ink) coated paper - that means no ink to replace, as it’s layered into the special paper the Step printer uses. 

So, how about loading this up with self-adhesive paper and creating shareable shots for your friends and family? This does put the fun back into sharing your favourite photos.

Ink tank printers have taken off in recent years, partly because traditional ink cartridges are both expensive and bad for the environment. So, this Epson EcoTank ET-8550 sports six refillable ink tanks to reduce the cost and hassle of printing your photos at home. Epson claims this printer can churn out over 2300 photos with just one set of ink bottles. A huge plus here is that the ink is the Clara Photo HD type, and the printer can handle paper sizes up to A3+. So, it’s also a great semi-professional option for serious photographers.

Once again, Epson proves they have usability in mind thanks to USB, memory card and remote Smart Panel app control for getting things done quickly and conveniently no matter what you’re shooting your snaps on. Lastly, for those interested in reducing costs, the print head is Micro Piezo heat-free technology, so it’ll work faster and consume less energy.

There are other six-ink printers on this list, but the Canon PIXMA TS8750 is one of the best for affordability. Setting out to prove that better photo prints using six-inks don’t have to cost a fortune, it's a compact and easy-to-use printer that can print up to A4 on photo paper. It’ll also take other paper types and sizes - and is ideal for borderless 4x6-inch prints. 

In typical Canon style, they haven’t cut any corners with the look and feel of this device either. It may be smaller than some, but the feel is premium. And that large front-facing display plus a memory card slot (and the excellent Canon Print app) puts you in quick control of your prints, whether on a smartphone or standing right next to it.

There aren’t many portable photo printers that can handle various album-friendly paper sizes. Specialising in taking your mobile and digital camera snaps and printing borderless onto photo paper up to the classic 4x6 inches, this Canon Selphy CP1500 Photo Printer is compact and portable. But, surprisingly, this doesn’t mean a sparsity of controls and usability. A glance at the printer will show that this has a very user-friendly design, with a screen and plenty of controls. 

The only downside for those planning to take this away with them is that it doesn’t have a battery pack for truly portable use - but one is available as an optional extra. Other than that, ink is hassle-free as all of the colours come in one compact cartridge. Paper options bring this printer to life with everything from postcards to stickers. But, best of all, every print comes off the printer protected against splashes and spills - they won’t fade for 100 years when stored in an album. So, you can quickly and easily print out all those precious memories and know they’ll last for years.

Printing photos uses more ink than most, so it’s no surprise that it’s one of the main costs to plan for. Much like the other ink tank-based printers here, this EcoTank ET-2812 ditches the typical ink cartridge in favour of tanks you can refill from plastic bottles instead. The net result is that this printer has some of the cheapest ink costs to be found. Epson claims that this comes with up to 3 years' worth of ink in the box – an astonishing 4,500 monochrome and 7,500 colour pages. 

Elsewhere, we like the front-facing tank windows that make it easy to monitor your levels. Knowing that the tanks are replacing up to 72 of those ordinary inkjet cartridges makes this a great buy for economical photo printing.

If you’re all about getting your prints off your phone and onto a traditional 4x6-inch photo print, this KODAK Dock Plus 4PASS Instant Photo Printer is your perfectly sized smartphone companion. Not only can you dock your phone on top of this (both Android and Apple via an adapter), but it’ll also charge the phone. And that’s perfect if you’re low on battery and need to get printing. 

Despite using paper in handy cartridges that load into the printer easily, it does use real ink – which means the print quality from this is a notch above other in-paper ink technology. One of the interesting ways that this Dock Plus printer achieves this quality is with 4PASS technology – it prints each of the colours in a separate pass, laminating them against water damage at the same time. The print time is longer than most inkjets, but the results speak for themselves. Capable of printing with a border or without, this photo printer is the best way to populate those frames and albums you’ve been holding on to.

This HP OfficeJet Pro 8025e has it all as a multifunction printer goes. Yes, it’s not the only one. all-in-one on our list, but it is the most feature-packed. As you’d expect, you'll be printing, scanning and copying in no time with this. There's a 35-page automatic sheet feeder and two-sided printing for easy document copying too. 

But, it’s the extra smart features that make this a multifunctional marvel. It can work with Amazon Alexa for voice-activated printing, as well as working with a companion app that will handle your printing remotely with less fuss. It'll also work with HP's Instant Ink subscription, so if you're all about keeping your printer topped up the smart way, this is it. Taking paper up to A4, including popular photo papers, it can print up to 10 colour photos per minute - so despite containing a lot of functionality, it doesn’t do this at the expense of speed.