Digital Camera Printer

Tips for Choosing the Best Digital Camera Printer

Once you have invested in a collection of great digital cameras and gear it's time to find a great digital camera printer. If you don't have a great digital camera printer your photos won't look as good as they should. In order to get professional looking prints of your digital photos at home you need to do a little homework and compare digital camera printers to find the one that is the best for your needs. Here are some tips that will help you choose a high quality digital camera printer:

Always choose a photo printer - It sounds simplistic but some people don't realize that you're not going to get great photo prints out of a multiuse printer that can also be used for household printing. Pick a digital camera printer that is engineered specifically for photos. Buy a cheap printer to do your household printing and invest a little more money in a great quality photo printer to get the best quality prints.

Get a six color digital camera printer - The more colors the digital camera printer that you choose has the more nuanced your photos will be. Printers with only three colors won't be capable of reproducing the shadows, lowlights and highlights of the photo itself. Six color photo printers are designed to capture all the small details of light and color in digital photos and reproduce them on paper.  Six color printers cost a bit more but they are well worth the extra cost.

Look for a digital camera printer that uses thermal dye - Thermal dyes will reproduce colors and images with a lot more clarity than other types of printers. Ink jet printers are also acceptable but thermal dye printers will give you the best quality photo prints. If you're going to be reproducing photos for your portfolio it's best to use thermal dye printers but ink jet printers are fine for creating prints for family and friends or for creating photo invitations or cards.

Check the inputs - If you're going to load photos directly from your digital camera make sure that the digital camera printer you buy has the right inputs for your camera. Usually the types of cameras that are compatible with a particular photo printer will be listed on the package. Also make sure that the printer has a USB port so you can plug it into your computer. Many people also choose digital camera printers that have inputs for cell phones and memory cards so that no matter where you capture a photo you can easily access it and print it.

Consider portability - If you're going to be on the move a lot, or if you're going to want to print photos instantly after taking a photo look for a digital camera printer that is small and lightweight and will fit easily into a suitcase or camera bag.  There are several different digital camera printer models that are designed to be used anywhere and are less than half the size of a traditional printer so that they are easily portable.