There is no single best inkjet printer for photo printing, because the right answer changes completely with the size of the print, the ink chemistry underneath, and how many photos you actually plan to make. A family printing school projects needs something small and cheap. A working photographer filling a gallery wall needs a tank-fed machine that will not eat cartridges.
We compared seven of the strongest photo-capable inkjets on the market, read the owner reviews, and scored them on ink type, maximum borderless size, running cost, paper handling, and the sort of detail work that separates a good photo from a great one. Our top pick for most people is the Epson PictureMate PM-400 for its combination of output quality and simplicity, while the Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 takes the 13×19 crown.
The three tiers you will see repeated below are a compact 4×6 and 5×7 all-in-one, a 13-inch enthusiast printer that handles 13×19 borderless, and a workhorse all-in-one built for volume. The three decision axes that separate them are maximum print size, dye versus pigment ink, and tank versus cartridge running cost. If you are still working out how you want to handle older prints, our guide to photo scanners for digitizing memories covers the other half of the workflow.
Table of Contents
Top 3 Inkjet Photo Printers for 2026
Epson PictureMate PM-400
- Borderless 4x6 and 5x7
- 5760 x 1440 dpi
- Wireless printing from a phone
- 6 pound body
Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550
- Claria ET Premium 6-color tanks
- Borderless 13x19 wide format
- About 4 cents per 4x6 print
- Built-in scanner and touchscreen
Epson EcoTank ET-15000
- Print copy scan and fax
- Auto duplex and 35-sheet ADF
- 250-sheet capacity
- Ethernet and Wi-Fi
Best Inkjet Printers for Photo Printing in 2026 at a Glance
| Product | Specifications | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Epson PictureMate PM-400 |
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| Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 |
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| Epson EcoTank ET-15000 |
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 Canon PIXMA G620 |
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 HP Envy Photo 7975 |
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 Canon PIXMA PRO-200S |
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 Canon PIXMA PRO-100 |
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1. Epson PictureMate PM-400 – Top Overall Pick for Home Photo Printing
Epson PictureMate PM-400 Wireless Compact Photo Printer
Borderless 4x6 and 5x7
5760 x 1440 dpi
Wireless from phone
50-sheet capacity
Pros
- Clean borderless 4x6 and 5x7 output
- Wireless app printing from iPhone and Android
- 36 second borderless 4x6
- Only 6 pounds and easy to store
- Two 2x3 cuts from one sheet
Cons
- 5x7 is the maximum size
- Cartridge ink costs more per print than tanks
- Needs a power cable rather than a battery
The PM-400 is the printer we recommend to anyone who says they just want to print photos. It does borderless 4×6 and borderless 5×7 at 5760 x 1440 dpi, it holds 50 sheets, and it weighs six pounds, which means you can put it on a shelf when you are not using it. There is no tray faff and no ink system to understand.
What surprised us was how consistently owners report the same experience across years. Reviewers talk about thousands of prints with no fading, smudge-proof output that survives scrapbook pages, and a wireless app that connects an iPhone or Android device in under a minute. A borderless 4×6 lands in about 36 seconds, and you can pull two 2×3 prints from a single sheet.
The honest limitation is size. This is a 4×6 and 5×7 machine and nothing more, so if you have ever framed an 8×10 or wanted a full 13×19, this is not the tool. Ink is cartridge based, and owners note that a swap can come roughly every 60 prints depending on coverage, which is the single biggest reason we do not call it the pick for volume.
It is also not portable in the way people assume. There is no battery and no Bluetooth, so the word wireless here means Wi-Fi printing from a phone on your network rather than printing from a phone in a park. For scrapbooking, school projects, and an album a few times a year, that distinction rarely matters.
Why it earns the top spot
Four and a half stars across more than 1400 ratings makes this the highest-rated printer in our lineup, and the review base is deep enough to trust. The 79 percent five-star share is not a handful of early adopters; it is a long tail of people who have owned it for years.
It also does something the expensive machines do not, which is get out of the way. There is no LCD panel to learn, no ink menu to configure, and no duplex tray to fill. You load a sheet, hit print on the app, and the photo comes out the way you expected it to.
Who should skip it
If you print more than a handful of photos a month, the cartridge math will start to sting. If you need 8×10 or larger, you will hit a hard ceiling on the very first print and be shopping again within a week.
Black-and-white hobbyists should also know what they are getting. This is a tri-color cartridge setup, so monochrome output depends on the driver doing the right thing with color ink, which is exactly the complaint forum photographers raise most often.
2. Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 – Best Borderless 13×19 With Cheap Ink
Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 Wireless Wide-Format All-in-One Tank Printer
Borderless 13x19
Claria ET Premium 6-color
Up to 6200 color pages per set
Built-in scanner
Pros
- Borderless 13x19 with six dye inks
- About 4 cents per 4x6 print
- Visible tanks with long intervals between refills
- Scanner copier and color touchscreen
- Auto duplex
Cons
- Tray sensor can false-trigger paper errors
- Setup takes around 2.5 hours
- Scanner has no document feeder
This is the printer we point hobby photographers toward when the question is 13×19. It runs Claria ET Premium six-color dye ink through refillable tanks, prints borderless up to 13 x 19 inches, and does auto duplex so you are not flipping paper by hand. Epson quotes up to 6200 color pages per full set of bottles.
The running cost is the headline. Epson rates a 4×6 at about 4 cents, and owners consistently describe going weeks without thinking about ink because the tanks are transparent and you can see the level. That changes how people print. When a page costs pennies rather than the cost of a coffee, you stop cropping everything to 4×6.
Quality is strong on glossy photo paper, with owners describing vibrant color and sharp detail. The flatbed scanner and 2.5-inch-class color touchscreen are genuinely useful additions, letting you scan and copy from the machine itself rather than only from a laptop.
The recurring gripes are mechanical rather than photographic. The tray one paper sensor commonly throws false out-of-paper or jam errors, and automatic tray selection is unreliable enough that many owners switch to selecting the tray manually. Unboxing and first setup take roughly 2.5 hours with a lot of packing tape to remove, so plan an afternoon rather than an evening.
When the 13×19 format pays off
Borderless 13×19 is the format most photographers actually want to frame, and it is the point at which a home printer starts to beat a lab. Owners report that once they can print an 11×14 or a full 13×19, they stop sending single images out entirely.
The six-color set also matters for skin tones and gradients. Compared with the four-color machines further down this list, the extra inks show up most in smooth skies and skin, where a four-color engine can band.
Where it frustrates people
At 24.5 pounds and roughly 30 inches deep, this needs a real surface, not a floating shelf. It also does not scan 11×17 originals, which matters if you have been planning to digitize large prints with the same machine.
Some owners report needing deep printhead cleans to resolve ink spotting, and forum users rightly point out that a clog on expensive fine art paper is expensive in more than ink. The fix is routine, and we cover it in the maintenance section below.
3. Epson EcoTank ET-15000 – Best Multi-Purpose Workhorse
Epson EcoTank ET-15000 Wireless All-in-One Wide-Format Supertank Printer
Print copy scan and fax
11x17 wide format
Auto duplex with 35-sheet ADF
250-sheet capacity
Pros
- Fax ADF and duplex make it a real office machine
- 250-sheet capacity cuts refills
- Ink cost per page competitive with laser
- Wi-Fi and Ethernet
- Easy setup from the control panel
Cons
- Four-color ink is not pro photo grade
- 11x17 loads in the rear holder
- Some owners report paper jams
Most buyers do not need a dedicated photo machine. They need a printer that also scans, faxes, and does double-sided documents without eating the kitchen table, and that is precisely what the ET-15000 is. It prints, copies, scans, and faxes, with an auto document feeder, auto duplex, and a 250-sheet capacity that is far above anything else in this roundup.
Photo output is good rather than exceptional. Reviewers describe rich, saturated color on both documents and full-coverage photos, and the four-color system at 4800 x 1200 dpi produces clean 8×10 and letter prints. It will not give you the tonal smoothness of a six or eight ink machine, and we want to be plain about that.
What it does offer is throughput. It runs 17 pages per minute in black and white and 9 in color, with a 33,000 page monthly duty cycle, and the tank system keeps ink cost per page far below cartridges. If you print a school project, a batch of 4x6s, and a stack of forms in the same week, this is the machine that will not become a bottleneck.
Paper handling is the weak point. Sheets above letter go into the rear manual feed rather than a dedicated large-format tray, duplex is manual for anything other than 8.5 x 11, and owners describe the paper-type selection as finicky with occasional jams. A few buyers also received machines with starved ink lines out of the box, so test early and use up the shipped ink before judging results.
Why we pair it with a photo upgrade later
The eco tank economics are the reason this makes so much sense as a second machine rather than a photo specialist. Refill bottles are dramatically cheaper than cartridge sets, and forum users across bookbinding and crafting communities consistently steer people to tank models for exactly this reason.
If your photo needs grow to 13×19 fine art later, the natural upgrade path is a dedicated 13-inch or 17-inch printer rather than forcing this one past its comfortable range.
Who it is not for
Serious black-and-white photographers should look elsewhere. A four-color engine with no dedicated gray ink is the configuration people complain about most when monochrome output comes back with a cast.
It is also large for a small flat, at 21.4 pounds and nearly 30 inches deep. Measure the space before you commit, because wide-format all-in-ones tend to migrate rooms over time.
4. Canon PIXMA G620 – Best Value for Dye Color
Canon PIXMA G620 Wireless MegaTank Photo All-in-One Printer [Print, Copy, Scan], Black,Works with Alexa
6-color dye MegaTank
About 2.5 cents per 4x6
Up to 3800 4x6 prints
Chromalife 100 inks
Pros
- Lowest cost per print in the roundup
- Six dye inks including red and gray
- Compact footprint for a tank printer
- Alexa low-ink alerts and reorders
Cons
- Smallest maximum media size here at 8.5x14
- Lowest average rating at 3.9
- Slow at 3.9 pages per minute
The G620 is the value pick in this list and the most economical way into six-color dye printing. Canon rates it at about 2.5 cents per 4×6 color photo and up to 3800 4×6 photos from a full set of inks, which is the lowest running cost of any printer we tested here.
The ink set is what makes it interesting beyond the price. It is a six-color dye system with red and gray inks added to the usual cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, and gray is exactly the channel that fixes muddy blacks and gives smoother skin tones than a three-color cartridge can manage. Chromalife 100 inks are specified for photo durability.
![Canon PIXMA G620 Wireless MegaTank Photo All-in-One Printer [Print, Copy, Scan], Black,Works with Alexa customer photo 1](https://www.moksanayoga.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/B08XZQVWZW_customer_1.jpg)
It also fits. At 17.6 inches deep and 19.1 inches wide, this is the smallest tank printer we looked at, which matters for anyone who was put off by the footprint of a wide-format model. Alexa integration can send low-ink alerts and reorder ink without a subscription, a small but real convenience.
The compromises are size and pace. Maximum media size is 8.5 x 14, so there is no 13×19 and no borderless large format, there is a single 50-sheet tray, and throughput is rated at 3.9 pages per minute. It is also the lowest-rated printer here at 3.9, with a 16 percent one-star share that mostly reflects those physical limits rather than broken hardware.
![Canon PIXMA G620 Wireless MegaTank Photo All-in-One Printer [Print, Copy, Scan], Black,Works with Alexa customer photo 2](https://www.moksanayoga.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/B08XZQVWZW_customer_2.jpg)
Where the ink chemistry shows up
Adding a red ink is not a marketing line. It is the difference between a skin tone that looks natural and one that turns slightly orange under warm gallery lighting, and it widens the color gamut enough to matter on saturated reds and deep greens. On an 8×10 or 5×7 the difference is plainly visible.
Because the inks are dye based, treat these as display prints. Keep them out of direct sun and out of a humid room, and frame them behind glass with UV filtering if they are going on a sunny wall.
When to choose something else
If your images are destined for a wall larger than 8×10, this printer stops being useful to you. The same goes for anyone printing in quantity, since 3.9 pages per minute and a 50-sheet tray will make a large job a project.
If monochrome is a priority, look for a machine with dedicated gray inks rather than relying on a dye set to fake it. The Canon PIXMA PRO-100 lower down is built for exactly that.
5. HP Envy Photo 7975 – Best Compact All-in-One for Small Homes
HP Envy Photo 7975 Wireless Color Inkjet Photo Printer, Print, scan, Copy, Easy Setup, Mobile Printing, Best-for-Home, 3 Month Instant Ink Trial Included, AI-Enabled (B63K3A)
Borderless photo printing
Dedicated photo tray
2.7 inch touchscreen
Auto duplex and 35-sheet ADF
Pros
- True borderless photos at an entry price
- Photo tray plus 35-sheet document feeder
- Auto duplex and 125-sheet capacity
- Intuitive 2.7 inch touchscreen
- Wireless and mobile printing
Cons
- Cartridge ink costs more per photo than tanks
- No wide format beyond 8.5x11.7
- Slimmest review base at 514 ratings
The Envy Photo 7975 is the choice when the printer has to double as a family all-in-one. It prints, copies, and scans, has auto duplex, a 35-sheet automatic document feeder, and a dedicated photo tray so you do not change paper every time you switch from homework to a picture. A 2.7-inch color touchscreen handles setup without a laptop.
Photo output is respectable for the class. It does true borderless photo printing at 4800 x 1200 optimized dpi and first pages out in about 22 seconds, with photo-enhanced ink handling the saturation work. For school projects, albums, and 4×6 and 5×7 prints, most people will be satisfied.
Its main limitation is ink economics. It runs HP 64 and 64XL tri-color cartridges, so the cost per photo is meaningfully higher than any of the tank machines above, and that difference compounds fast if you print regularly. Maximum media size is 8.5 x 11.7, which rules out anything wider.
We would also flag the evidence base. At 514 ratings it has the thinnest long-term reliability record in this roundup, so treat early impressions cautiously. The HP AI print layout feature, which strips unwanted content out of web pages and emails, is genuinely nice for home use and does nothing for photos.
When a compact all-in-one makes sense
If the printer lives in a hallway cupboard and has to be a scanner and copier as often as a photo printer, this is the shape that fits. The photo tray and auto duplex are what separate it from a basic home inkjet, and the touchscreen removes the most common source of frustration for people who do not want to learn a driver.
It is also small enough to be portable-adjacent at 17.9 pounds, which is light for an all-in-one and easy to move between rooms.
Where the trade-off bites
Print volume is where it disappoints. People who print regularly report the cartridge treadmill quickly, and the fix is not a better cartridge, it is a different machine. If you expect more than a few prints a month, move to a tank model.
It is also not the printer for a photographer. Nothing here addresses borderless larger formats, dedicated black inks, or media weight beyond standard glossy paper.
6. Canon PIXMA PRO-200S – Best for 13×19 Borderless Dye Prints
Canon PIXMA PRO-200S Professional 13″ Wireless Inkjet Photo Printer, 3″ Color LCD, 8-Color Dye Ink, Black
8-color dye ink
Borderless 13x19
Custom sizes to 13x39
3.0 inch color LCD
Pros
- Eight dye inks give excellent monochrome detail
- Borderless from 3.5x3.5 to 13x19
- Custom sizes up to 13x39 for panoramas
- Quiet operation
- Low ink consumption
Cons
- Cartridge ink costs more per print
- 2 pages per minute is slow
- Finicky paper type detection
The PRO-200S is the enthusiast 13×19 machine in this roundup, and the eight-color dye system is the reason. Eight inks is enough to render smooth gradients, rich blacks, and clean skin tones without the posterization you see on a four-color engine, and artists and photographers consistently single out its handling of blacks and gradients as outstanding.
It prints borderless from 3.5 x 3.5 all the way to a full 13 x 19, and it accepts custom sizes up to 13 x 39 inches, which makes panoramas possible. Canon rates a bordered A3+ at 90 seconds and a bordered 8×10 at 53 seconds.
Ink consumption is lower than people expect. Owners report that ink levels barely moved after multiple test prints, and Canon nozzles are widely regarded as less clog-prone than rivals, which matters when you are about to commit a sheet of fine art paper. A 3.0-inch color LCD on the front lets you check levels and settings without opening a laptop.
There are real frictions. The rated speed is 2 pages per minute, so higher-quality prints take noticeably longer. Setup and software installation frustrates first-time owners, with install screens that jump and refuse to expand, and paper-type detection is finicky enough that it can report no paper when the tray is loaded.
What the eighth ink buys you
Going from four to eight inks is not a marketing step. It means finer gradations between tones, a wider range of skin tones, and blacks that hold density in shadow without turning muddy. If your work is judged at arm’s length in a gallery or printed for another person, that difference is visible.
Eight inks also give you a legitimate black and white path, since the extra channels help produce neutral grays. Owners frequently describe monochrome output from this machine as excellent, which is not something you can say about the four-color models.
Who should not buy it
If you are printing in volume, the cartridge system is the wrong economics for you, and the 2 pages per minute rating will test your patience before the ink does. Tank-fed 13-inch machines exist precisely for that combination.
It is also heavy. At 32 pounds it needs a sturdy, deep table, and it will not sit happily on a small desk in a studio apartment. Budget for a dedicated space.
7. Canon PIXMA PRO-100 – Best for Black and White Photo Printing
Canon PIXMA PRO-100 Professional Photo Printer
8 dye inks including 3 grayscale
13x19 maximum
150-sheet capacity
4800 x 2400 dpi
Pros
- Three dedicated grayscale inks for neutral monochrome
- Individual ink tanks so you replace only what ran out
- 150-sheet capacity is the largest here
- 13x19 output at 4800 x 2400 dpi
Cons
- 1 page per minute is very slow
- Heaviest unit at 43.4 pounds
- Thinnest review base at 111 ratings
If black and white photography is your primary output, this is the only printer in our lineup built specifically for it. Eight dye-based inks include three dedicated grayscale inks, and Canon’s Optimum Image Generating System picks the optimum combination and placement of those inks for smooth gradients and clean neutral tone.
That is the difference between a monochrome print and a color print that has been converted. Photographers who print black and white complain endlessly about color casts from tri-color cartridges, and dedicated gray channels are the direct answer to that complaint. The inks are separate tanks, so you only replace the color that actually ran out.
Capacity is generous at 150 sheets, and it prints up to 13 x 19 at 4800 x 2400 dpi with FINE technology for detail. Forum users have long recommended it for borderless work, with one noting it is slow but prints borderless at 5×7 and still beats waiting on a lab.
We have to be honest about the caveats, and there are several. The rated speed is 1 page per minute, it is the heaviest unit here at 43.4 pounds, duplex is manual, and with 111 ratings it has the thinnest review base in the roundup. It is also an older platform, so long-term ink availability is worth confirming in your region before you commit.
Why grayscale inks still matter
A tri-color cartridge has no gray channel at all, so neutral gray has to be made from cyan, magenta, and yellow in unequal amounts, and any imbalance shows as a cast. Three dedicated grays, as here, let the printer mix true neutrals and reproduce a wide tonal range without that error.
If you shoot and print monochrome, this is a technical advantage you will feel immediately. If you are a color photographer, the same hardware is largely wasted and you would be better served by a six or eight color color-focused machine.
Who should skip it
Skip it if speed matters. At 1 page per minute a batch job is not realistic, and reviewers describe throughput as very slow. It is also the pick most exposed to supply questions, since it represents an older generation of the platform.
Skip it if you need scanning, copying, or duplex, because this is a print-focused machine and it does not deliver the office side of the job.
How We Picked the Best Inkjet Printers for Photo Printing
We compared seven photo-capable inkjets that were available to buy and had enough owner feedback to judge. We read the full review sets rather than the top-line rating, because the gap between a four star and a four and a half star matters less than the specific complaints attached to each machine.
Five criteria decided the ranking. Ink type and color count, maximum borderless print size, running cost per print, paper handling, and build for the actual volume of photos the machine is likely to see. Reliability and mechanical complaints were weighted heavily, since a printer that throws false jam errors changes how you work.
We also cross-checked against owner discussions on printing forums, where the same three issues come up repeatedly: ink running out too fast, black and white prints coming back with a color cast, and prints that look wrong because of a driver or monitor setting rather than the printer. Those complaints shaped which picks got flagged as being not for certain buyers.
Buying Guide: Dye vs Pigment, Ink Tanks and Paper
The printer is the last decision, not the first. Ink chemistry, print size, and running cost determine almost everything about how your photos will look and what they will cost you over a few years, so it is worth getting those right before you compare models.
Dye ink or pigment ink
Dye ink gives you punchier, more saturated color and wider gamut, which is why it dominates photo printing. Pigment ink is more fade resistant and better on fine art and matte media, but it typically costs more and can look slightly flatter on glossy paper unless the printer has an optimizer channel.
None of the seven printers here uses pigment black exclusively for photos. The EcoTank Photo ET-8550, the PIXMA G620, the PRO-200S, and the PRO-100 all run dye, which is the correct call for color photography. If your work is archival fine art on cotton rag, or you need a true black for black and white, note that dedicated pigment or gray channels are what you are looking for.
Dye prints are display pieces rather than permanent records. Keep them out of direct sunlight and out of damp rooms, and use UV-filtering glass or framing for anything on a bright wall.
Tank versus cartridge running cost
This is the single largest cost difference in the roundup, and it is worth doing the arithmetic before you buy. Canon rates the PIXMA G620 at about 2.5 cents per 4×6 and Epson rates the ET-8550 at about 4 cents. Cartridge machines in this list, such as the HP Envy Photo 7975 and the PM-400, cost meaningfully more per photo because you pay for the cartridge shell every time.
Forum users describe the same pattern in blunt terms: cartridges run out almost immediately and a replacement set can cost more than the printer itself. For anyone printing regularly, a tank model pays for itself through use, not through purchase.
One practical warning. The maintenance advice in printing communities is consistent on third-party ink, which is tempting for cost but risks printhead clogs and warranty complications. For quality-critical work, genuine ink is the safer bet.
Maximum print size and format
Match the printer to the frame you actually want. The PM-400 stops at 5×7, the HP Envy Photo 7975 at 8.5 x 11.7, the PIXMA G620 at 8.5 x 14, the ET-15000 at 11 x 17, and the ET-8550, PRO-200S, and PRO-100 at 13 x 19. The PRO-200S also accepts custom sizes up to 13 x 39 for panoramas.
Resolution is less of a differentiator than buyers expect. Most people view prints at a distance where anything above roughly 150 dpi looks sharp, so the number that matters is size and borderless capability, not the headline dpi figure.
Photo paper matters more than the printer
Owners who complain about disappointing prints are usually blaming the printer when the paper is the cause. Glossy photo paper is the safe default and the best match for dye ink. Lustre or satin surfaces cut glare and are easier to handle under gallery lighting. Baryta gives deeper blacks and very smooth tone. Cotton rag and other fine art papers suit matte and archival work but need a printer configured for them.
Weight matters too. Around 200 to 310 gsm is the range most photographers land on, with anything below 200 feeling thin in the hand and much above 310 needing a printer that feeds heavier stock reliably. Fine art paper also means a hard margin, because printers cannot lay ink to the very edge of a thick rag sheet. If you need edge to edge, choose a thinner media designed for borderless.
Calibration fixes most bad prints
The most common complaint in printing forums is not a faulty machine, it is a print that looks wrong. A monitor that has never been calibrated will show an image far brighter than the print that comes out of the printer, and people read that as the printer failing.
Two steps solve most of it. Calibrate your monitor, and use your operating system’s color profile with the printer driver rather than trusting the driver default. When you print from a color-managed application, turn off the driver’s color management option so the application handles the profile instead, because the two systems fighting each other is what produces muddy or oversaturated results.
If you are digitizing older prints before reprinting them, our photo scanner roundup covers the scanning half of the chain. If your workflow also produces physical objects alongside the images, our beginner 3D printer guide is the companion piece for that side of the desk.
Who should skip an inkjet entirely
Not everyone needs one. Dye-sublimation printers such as the Canon SELPHY line produce extremely durable 4×6 and 5×7 prints with no ink cartridges at all, which suits event and ID printing where you need consistency far more than gallery color. Zink pocket printers trade quality for portability and cost, and are for phones rather than cameras.
And for a handful of large, important prints a year, a professional lab can still win. A lab handles pigment printing on baryta and rag, delivers color-managed results across a very wide range of media, and removes the setup, paper, and maintenance learning curve entirely. The break-even point is usually somewhere around a dozen or more large prints a month, below which the lab is the simpler answer.
Keeping nozzles clear
Nozzle clogs are the most common cause of wasted ink and ruined fine art sheets, and they are largely preventable. Print a test page or alignment sheet every two to four weeks if the machine sits idle, because ink that dries in the head is the problem you are preventing. Keep the printer plugged in, since many models run head maintenance only when powered.
Run a head clean only after a failed test page, not routinely, since each clean consumes a meaningful amount of ink. And if a print shows streaks, do not waste a sheet of expensive paper on a second attempt before you have cleaned the head. Forum users who print fine art treat this routine as non-negotiable, and it is the cheapest insurance in photo printing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which inkjet printer is best for photos?
The Epson PictureMate PM-400 is our top overall pick for most people, printing borderless 4×6 and 5×7 photos wirelessly from a phone. For larger output, the Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 handles borderless 13×19 sheets with six-color dye ink at about 4 cents per 4×6 print.
Do inkjet printers print good photos?
Yes, when the ink type, the paper, and your color settings all match. A six or eight color dye machine on glossy or lustre photo paper produces prints that most people cannot distinguish from a lab. Most disappointing prints come from a driver or monitor calibration problem rather than the printer itself.
What is the best printer for home use photo printing?
For most homes, the Epson PictureMate PM-400 covers the common cases with borderless 4×6 and 5×7 output, wireless phone printing, and a six-pound body that stores easily. If your home also needs scanning, copying, and duplex documents, the HP Envy Photo 7975 or the Epson EcoTank ET-15000 serve better.
What is the best 13×19 photo printer?
The Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 is the strongest 13×19 choice here, combining borderless wide format with a six-color Claria ET Premium tank system and a running cost of about 4 cents per 4×6. The Canon PIXMA PRO-200S is the alternative if you want eight dye inks for smoother gradients and monochrome.
Is Canon or Epson better for photo printing?
Both are excellent and it comes down to ink system and format. Epson leads on tank economics, so their EcoTank models print far cheaper per page. Canon leads on ink channel depth, with eight-color dye sets including gray and red inks that widen the color gamut. Pick Epson for volume and Canon for color and monochrome nuance.
What is the difference between dye and pigment ink for photos?
Dye ink is more saturated and wider in gamut, which is why it is used for color photography, and it costs less per print. Pigment ink is far more fade resistant and handles fine art and matte media better, but usually costs more and can look flatter without an optimizer channel.
Which Canon printer prints 13×19?
Two in this roundup print up to 13 x 19: the Canon PIXMA PRO-200S with eight dye inks and borderless output plus custom sizes to 13×39, and the Canon PIXMA PRO-100 with eight inks including three dedicated grayscale channels. The Canon PIXMA G620 is limited to 8.5 x 14 and does not reach 13×19.
Which Epson printer can print 13×19?
Two Epson models here handle 13×19. The EcoTank Photo ET-8550 prints borderless 13×19 sheets from refillable Claria ET Premium tanks, and the EcoTank ET-15000 manages 11 x 17 media through its rear holder with a 250-sheet capacity for document-heavy use.
The Best Inkjet Printers for Photo Printing in 2026
After comparing all seven on ink chemistry, borderless size, running cost, and the real complaints owners report, the Epson PictureMate PM-400 comes out as the best inkjet printer for photo printing for most households. The Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 is the pick for 13×19, the Canon PIXMA G620 is the most economical way into six-color dye, and the Canon PIXMA PRO-100 answers the black and white question properly.
Whichever one you choose, buy the right paper and calibrate your monitor before you judge the results. The printer is usually not the problem. Use the buttons below to check current pricing and availability for each model, and pick the tier that matches how many photos you will actually print.