There has been an explosion of photo printers in the last few years, and with that has come lower prices for these machines. The majority of photo printers are going to cost between $100-$300, although you can find machines either higher or lower than those prices depending on what you are looking for.

Printer manufacturers know that when it comes to photo printers, they must do something to make their models stand out among the ever-increasing crowd and make it seem like they have the best photo printer. The way that they do that is by giving names to their ink and their technology. So you will see things like Epson UltraChrome, HP Vivera and Canon ChromaLife. The truth of the matter is that is probably very difficult for the average eye to spot differences between these three types of printer ink. Ink is ink. If you are a professional looking to sell or exhibit your work, then you may actually have a combination of one manufacturer's ink and paper that gives you noticeably better results than others. For the common user just using standard photo paper to print pictures for themselves or family and friends, the difference between types of printer ink probably does not mean that much. We have found, though, that there is a difference between results on normal paper and on photo paper. So if you are going for the best results, invest in the best photo paper.

One important thing to remember is that if you purchase an HP Photosmart printer that does not feature their individual ink cartridges, you could be in for some inconvenience if you print the same types of colors over and over. For instance, if you only print pictures of people's faces, then odds are you are going to run out of yellow first. Therefore, if you remember always using one color more than others on your previous machine, then maybe an HP isn't the best photo printer for you.