There are many types of digital photo printers available that are made especially for printing photographs. They come in many sizes; many of them are small enough to be carried along with your camera so that you can print photos whenever you need them. Several of these, which include portable printers, connect to your digital camera. This means a computer is no longer needed to print photographs. Some have special slots for a digital media cards. This means you can just detach the card from your camera and attach it directly into the printer. With these printers, you get photos immediately. However these come at a cost. More expensive than normal inkjet printers, they begin at $150 and go up to $300 to $500. At the higher end are the professional ones.

The more expensive are essentially inkjet printers, with six color cartridges. A few use the thermal dye or dye sublimation technology, which melts ink "crayons" onto the pages. While they provide high quality, they are only good for photo printing. Today, color lasers are also used, though they are not as popular. The desktop color lasers are not as good, though they have improved. They are cheaper, and it is possible to get monochrome lasers. Dell offers monochrome Printer 1100; it is also below $100. Scanners available for photographers have add-ons that that allow scanning of film and negatives.

There are few ways you can get more out of your photo printer. Fine-tune to the highest resolution when you want to print the pictures. The picture that is to be printed should not be saved as JPEGs or in any other compressed file format; save the original instead because this will help you get a better picture. You can improve upon the picture that has been taken; if you are taking a test print, decrease image size and load the printer with plain, $2-a-ream paper. Check out the printer software as it may allow printing of many images on one sheet.

Matte-finish photo cards can be used instead of glossy photo paper when printing 4-by-6-inch images. These have a better finish and are cheaper. Some printers like the Canon's i960 printer have a superior color palette. You can install this in your printer if you are not happy with the current printing quality.

If you are printing black and white photos, you could use the color mode and you will get a better finish. Remember to keep the nozzle clear because they may get blocked if they are not used. You could call a professional or use a kit costing about $15. Some printers stay clean if turned on and off once a week.

Some of the best digital photo printers now available are Kodak Professional 9810 Digital Photo Printer, Epson Stylus Pro 4000, Canon Pixma iP8500 Photo Printer, Canon Selphy DS700 Photo Printer, Epson PictureMate Deluxe Viewer Edition, and Sony PictureStation DPP-FP30. Check out the one that suits you best.