The 2 Best Photo Printers for 2023

After reviewing the information in this guide, we continue to stand by our picks.

A photo printer is the final step of your digital darkroom, capable of transforming your image from an idea into a tangible, gallery-worthy art piece that can last a lifetime. For photography enthusiasts who are looking to create professional-quality prints at home, we recommend the Epson SureColor P700. This inkjet printer consistently delivers great results using long-lasting pigment inks. The P700 can print on all types of media up to 13 inches wide, and it was the fastest printer we tested.

The P700 consistently delivers excellent-quality prints with long-lasting pigment inks. It also offers a color touchscreen and other appealing features. The premature need to replace the ink, however, is not so user-friendly.

May be out of stock

*At the time of publishing, the price was $922.

The Epson SureColor P700 consistently produces beautiful, high-quality color and black-and-white prints that accurately reflect the original image across many types of media using archival, pigment-based inks meant to last a lifetime. It also includes two features you won't find in competitors: a color touchscreen that's useful for performing maintenance and observing the printing process, and a see-through panel and interior light that let you watch the print being made, which is truly captivating.

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The Pro-200 produces vibrant prints for less money but uses dye-based inks that may not last as long as pigment-based inks.

If you’re watching your budget, the Canon Pixma Pro-200 creates vibrant prints that are perhaps a tad less color-accurate than those of the Epson SureColor P700. Compared with most printers, it is relatively easy to operate, with handy on-screen operating cues and QR-code links to more complex instructions. The printer and the dye-based inks it uses are less expensive than our top pick and its inks. However, dye-based inks typically don't last as long as pigment inks—although they may last through your lifetime, they might not endure for generations to come.

The P700 consistently delivers excellent-quality prints with long-lasting pigment inks. It also offers a color touchscreen and other appealing features. The premature need to replace the ink, however, is not so user-friendly.

May be out of stock

*At the time of publishing, the price was $922.

The Pro-200 produces vibrant prints for less money but uses dye-based inks that may not last as long as pigment-based inks.

Erin Lodi is a photojournalist, a writer, and a professional photographer with a wide range of experience in researching, testing, and writing about photography trends, techniques, and tools—including in her role as mobile-imaging editor at DPReview. Erin and fellow reviewer Amadou Diallo have spent many, many hours researching and testing dedicated photo printers since the first iteration of this review in 2013. In addition to drawing on the knowledge of the experts we spoke to for previous versions of this guide, Erin showed our most recent test prints to Taylor McAtee, printing expert and owner of Stretch and Staple, a print shop in Seattle, to get his take on the overall quality of each print.

True photography enthusiasts who love tinkering with a new piece of gear and plan to print frequently will love seeing their images come to life as large, gallery-quality prints. But take note: Dedicated photo printers of this scale and scope—not to mention this level of investment—are not for the average shutterbug.

All that said, printing, like spending time in the darkroom, can help you become a better photographer. Understanding the entire process—from pressing the shutter button to seeing an image come to life on a 13-by-19-inch matte print that looks like it belongs in an art gallery—will change the way you think about your camera settings, your editing process, and how you’ll display your work for decades to come. If you’re used to choosing and editing an image meant only to be consumed in a fleeting moment on a tiny smartphone screen, this shift may be revolutionary to your growth as a photographer. And if you’re feeling stuck in a rut with the type of photography you’ve been doing, a dedicated photo printer may open up a world of new possibilities and perspectives as you explore how your work looks when printed on various media types and sizes.

We spent more than 40 hours on research and comparison, and we found that Nations Photo Lab is the best online photo printing service.

We spent hours and hours researching inkjet photo printers for this review. We read reviews from reputable sources such as Digital Camera World, Northlight Images, PCMag, and TechRadar, and we scoured the internet to read customer reviews on Amazon and other retail sites.

Here's what we looked for in a dedicated photo printer:

Our research and testing for this round and previous iterations of this review allowed us to narrow the field of contenders in this category to three printers for thorough hands-on testing. We compared the Epson SureColor P700, the Canon Pixma Pro-200, and the Canon imagePrograf Pro-300 by printing dozens of images on each model across a wide variety of media types.

We printed on both glossy and matte papers up to 13 inches wide using paper stock and (for color images) ICC profiles provided by the printer vendor. For black-and-white prints, we used the monochrome-only modes in the printer drivers at their default settings, disabling the color-management options in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. We printed images at the printers’ default resolutions and viewed our prints under numerous lighting conditions, including the professional lighting at a Seattle print shop with expert Taylor McAtee. Although using the absolute highest settings did, in some cases, produce more detailed results (at the cost of much longer print times) in our tests, the differences were slight enough that we recommend the default settings in most cases.

We printed from both Lightroom and Photoshop, starting with the raw-format files shot on a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, and we tested the free downloadable software from both Canon and Epson for comparison.

Ink usage is difficult to quantify with any precision because the amount you use is dependent on the type and size of the images you print. We therefore settled on cartridge size and price, calculating a cost-per-milliliter figure to use in comparing operating costs across different models.

We set up each printer on a home Wi-Fi network and compared the speed over cable connections and wireless connections. The latter were a lot slower, but our Wi-Fi worked well enough for each printer—and we found that tolerating a slightly longer wait was more convenient than constantly tripping over a USB cable.

The P700 consistently delivers excellent-quality prints with long-lasting pigment inks. It also offers a color touchscreen and other appealing features. The premature need to replace the ink, however, is not so user-friendly.

May be out of stock

*At the time of publishing, the price was $922.

The Epson SureColor P700 consistently produces beautiful, high-quality color and black-and-white prints worthy of hanging in your home or any art gallery. Time after time, its output in our tests most closely matched our color-calibrated computer screen. Color prints displayed impressive detail and accurate skin tones, while black-and-white prints showed a full range of tone, without color cast, more consistently than those of the competition.

The 4.3-inch tilting color touchscreen is useful for performing maintenance and observing the printing process as it displays your image during printing. Using the touchscreen makes changing the paper type and sizing feel more seamless than on competing printers, which still offer only physical buttons for such tasks. Graphic instructions offer step-by-step assistance and explanations. A see-through panel and an interior light allow you to watch each print in process, a feature we found as entrancing as seeing an image emerge in a darkroom tray.

The P700 is capable of printing on media up to 13 inches wide and up to 1.5 mm thick. Though we found that the primary paper feed could be finicky, the results were gorgeous across each paper type we used in testing, from the shiny, silvery Moab Slickrock Metallic to textured fine-art matte papers like Hahnemühle's Photo Rag Bright White, which almost looks like watercolor paper. The P700 can also accept roll paper for potentially super-wide panoramic prints. All of the printers we tested are also capable of generating CD/DVD labels, a feature that feels awfully outdated in 2021.

When Epson announced the P700 in the fall of 2020, it released a new set of pigment inks for the printer that promised better color gamut (a fuller display of all colors) and deeper blacks. Thanks to the improved 10-channel printhead, you no longer have to switch between matte inks and photo black inks depending on the type of paper you’re using, a cumbersome experience when we used the P700's predecessor, our previous top pick, the Epson SureColor P600. Each 25 mL ink cartridge costs about $38 to replace, for a per-mL cost of $1.52. With 10 cartridges in total, you spend almost half as much as the total price of the printer for that first full set of ink. That said, the cartridges should last twice as long as those of our also-great pick, the Canon Pixma Pro-200, which has a per-mL ink cost of $1.11. But the Pixma Pro-200's cartridges are smaller (12.6 mL), so they need to be replaced more frequently, and they use dye-based inks, which are not guaranteed to last quite as long as the pigment sort but should still look great for decades. Pigment-based inks are meant to last longer than a lifetime when printed on fine-art papers, and you pay more for that longevity.

You can print from either Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom, though Epson also offers its own free software. Epson Print Layout works as a standalone program or as a Photoshop or Lightroom plug-in. Although downloading more software and getting the hang of yet another interface—after all the other setup steps a new printer requires—may seem daunting, Epson's software does offer more printer-specific language than Adobe's software, and as a result it might help you ensure you’re selecting all the correct settings so you don't waste time or paper.

The P700 comes with Wi-Fi, USB, and Ethernet connectivity options. It was the fastest printer we tested, though printing over Wi-Fi was generally slower than doing so over a physical connection.

While the Epson SureColor P700 was the smallest photo printer we tested, it was also the heaviest at 35.3 pounds, though the other two weren't far behind at 32 pounds and 31.6 pounds. And "small" is relative here: Measuring 20.3 by 14.5 by 7.3 inches, the P700 is a substantial addition to any home desk. You should also anticipate leaving another foot or so in the front to fully extend the output tray and about the same space in the back to accommodate paper output from the front paper feeder or to use the roll-paper feeder. The primary (rear) paper-feeder support adds another 10 inches in height and 4 inches in depth when fully extended.

Setting up the Epson SureColor P700 is not for the faint of heart. Although the physical installation was fairly straightforward on all the printers we tested, installing drivers and adding printers was confounding, primarily because each printer's instructions stopped at "connect printer to your computer" without much direction from that point onward.

Of the three printers we tested, the P700 presented the most paper-feed problems. After we made several unsuccessful attempts at loading the roll paper and watched too many unhelpful YouTube videos, it took a tip from Wirecutter editor Phil Ryan—hold it down with your finger—for us to finally get the paper rolling right. Surprisingly, the primary (rear) paper feed struggled most with standard glossy Epson paper, and we could make it work only by inserting one page at a time. We found numerous reviews online indicating that other people have also struggled with paper-feed problems on the P700. It isn't a dealbreaker from our point of view, but if you already know that your primary printing will entail producing several copies of an image on glossy paper, you might be better off with the Canon Pixma Pro-200, which had no problem continuously pulling from a stack of glossy 8-by-10 sheets in our tests.

Most unfortunately, the P700 ships with "starter" cartridges, which are not completely filled with ink, and Epson does not make that message clear upon setup. So six prints in, while both Canon printers displayed full ink levels, the Epson gave us our first low-ink warning for one ink cartridge. We reached out to Epson immediately for a full set of replacement inks, and in the meantime we continued printing. Thankfully, the P700 kept pace with both Canon models as we churned out samples for this review, but the low-ink warning had made us wary of when we might start to see the effect of a missing color on a print or whether the printer would stop working entirely. It's a very poor customer experience to realize, just a few prints in, that you’ll need to shell out another $380—nearly half the cost of the printer itself—for a set of full-capacity ink cartridges. That Epson does not communicate why this development has occurred is even more frustrating. If the printer's performance had not been so excellent, this experience would have been a dealbreaker for us.

The Pro-200 produces vibrant prints for less money but uses dye-based inks that may not last as long as pigment-based inks.

If you’re looking for a printer capable of producing vibrant colors that pop off the page at a lower price than our top pick, the Canon Pixma Pro-200 is also a great choice. The printing expert we consulted concluded that it had the best color gamut—that is, the fullest color range—of the three printers we tested. That said, the colors were often oversaturated and warmer than in the original image displayed on our color-calibrated monitor and were therefore not as accurate as the final results that our top pick from Epson produced.

The Pro-200's results were beautiful across all the media types we tested, if less consistent than those of the P700. The rear and front paper feeds never jammed or struggled to pull paper, unlike on our top pick, which had an especially hard time with glossy media. The Canon Pixma Pro-200 is therefore a better choice if you know you’ll regularly print multiple copies of an image on glossy paper. One of our biggest complaints about the Pro-200's predecessor, the Pro-100, was that it imposed a wide, 1.2-inch image border on all four sides when we used fine-art matte paper. Those restrictions have been lifted in the Pro-200, and the results in our tests were outstanding across the whole of a 13-by-19-inch print. This model can also print CD/DVD labels.

The Pro-200 is simple enough to set up (through none of these printers are exactly easy to deal with in that regard), with a smart handled-bag system to help you pull the 32-pound device from the box and maneuver it onto your desktop. The written instructions include QR codes that direct you to online setup videos. Though the lack of touchscreen capabilities on the 3-inch color LCD screen feels outdated—we had to train ourselves to stop pressing the screen and remember to use the physical buttons to the right—the overall interactive experience is fairly intuitive. Helpful graphic videos give directions for tasks such as loading paper, and during certain procedures the screen also displays QR codes that quickly put an online help video into the palm of your hand via a smartphone.

Like our top pick, the Pro-200 offers Wi-Fi, USB, and Ethernet connectivity. It was slightly slower than the P700 in our testing, and it was slower over Wi-Fi than USB, but not so much that we would have noticed if we hadn't been running a stopwatch.

At this writing the Pro-200 costs $200 less than our top pick, and after generating more than 50 prints, many in the large 13-by-19 format, we still haven't had to replace the ink cartridges. The 12.6 mL cartridges hold less ink than the P700's 25 mL cartridges, so you have to replace them more frequently, but at a cost of $1.11 per milliliter versus $1.52 per milliliter for our top pick; this printer also has only eight cartridges to replace, versus 10 for our top pick.

One of the biggest drawbacks of the Canon Pixma Pro-200 is that it uses dye-based inks, which will not last as long as the archival-quality pigment inks of the Epson SureColor P700. A dye-ink print can certainly last decades if properly cared for (our printing expert emphasized protecting dye-based prints under UV glass and using a protective coating to extend their lifespan as long as possible), but if you are concerned about longevity, or if you’re planning to sell your prints and want to use archival quality as a selling point, look at our top pick.

Canon offers free printing software that can work as a standalone method of sending an image to print or as a plug-in for both Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. It offers more printer-specific nomenclature than Adobe's printing panels do, but it can't open raw files. Both Photoshop and Lightroom are better options for editing your images, so continuing with another software step may feel more cumbersome than advantageous, but Canon's Professional Print & Layout program does offer a handy pattern print option, which can be especially useful for considering tone and cast in black-and-white prints and how a print will appear under specific lighting conditions.

Our previous top pick, the Epson SureColor P600, is now discontinued. The P700 improves on the older model with a new 10-channel printhead, and as a result you no longer have to switch between matte inks and photo black inks depending on the type of paper you’re using. It also adds a violet ink cartridge, which should make for more accurate color reproduction. The new model is also significantly smaller than its predecessor.

With a maximum width of 17 inches, the Epson SureColor P900 can create prints even larger than those of the P700. Its pigment-based ink cartridges also hold double the capacity of the P700's cartridges. If you anticipate printing enough large-format work on a regular basis to justify the $1,200 price tag, this model could be worth a look, but we imagine it's more than most people need. Likewise, the 17-inch Canon imagePrograf Pro-1000 probably exceeds what most folks want to accomplish—and spend—at $1,300.

The Canon Pixma Pro-100 was a past pick but is also now discontinued. The Pro-200 addresses our primary complaints about its predecessor by upping its ability to handle thicker media types and removing image-border constraints when printing on fine-art matte papers. The Canon Pixma Pro-1 imposed those same margin restrictions. We also previously recommended the Canon Pixma Pro-10, but that model too has gone extinct.

Mike Pasini, Photo Corners, interview

Tyler Boley, Custom Digital, interview

Jim Harmer, 11 Online Print Labs Compared, Improve Photography

William Harrel, Epson SureColor P600 Wide Format Inkjet Printer Review, Computer Shopper, February 20, 2015

Keith Cooper, Epson SureColor P600 review, Northlight Images, January 15, 2015

Vincent Oliver, Epson SureColor SC-P600 review, Amateur Photographer, April 23, 2015

M. David Stone, Epson SureColor P600 Review, PC Mag, March 24, 2015

Andrew Darlow, Printer Test: Epson SureColor P600, Popular Photography, March 9, 2015

Michael Reichmann, Epson SureColor P600 Review, The Luminous Landscape, April 1, 2015

Henry Wilhelm, Kabenla Armah, Barbara C. Stahl, Testing the Permanence of Photobook Pages, International Symposium on Technologies for Digital Photo Fulfillment, January 8, 2012

Erin Roberts

Erin Roberts is a freelance writer reporting on cameras and camera accessories at Wirecutter. She started her career as a photojournalist working in newspapers—shooting film—and was the mobile-imaging editor at DPReview. She is also a professional photographer who has made her living photographing everything from rock stars to humpback whales.

Amadou Diallo

Amadou Diallo is a writer based in New York. His work has appeared in Al Jazeera America, The New York Times, Forbes, and The Atlantic.

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