Professional Minilab Photo Printers

Canon offers free printing software that works standalone or as a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. It offers more printer-specific nomenclature than Adobe’s printing panels do, but it can’t open raw files. The P700 features a transparent window and an interior light that together allow you to watch each print in process, an experience that we found as absorbing as seeing an image emerge in a darkroom tray.

Epson is a company that makes a variety of printers to suit the needs of most common households and small and big businesses. Aside from specialty printers like label printers or disc printers, their consumer-level all-in-ones are mostly inkjets, as they stopped making laser printers several years ago. They have a stunning number of inkjet printers for nearly any use, with the WorkForce, Expression, and EcoTank lines being the most popular. These capable cameras should be solid and well-built, have both the speed and focus to capture fast action and offer professional-level image quality.

Powered by Epson Micro Piezo™ Variable Sized Droplet Technology – EcoTank Photo uses our 6‑Color Claria® ET with photographic dye inks to produce exceptional color and black & white photographic print quality. And some have Bluetooth, which is useful for printing photos from mobile devices. You might want to consider this if you want to share the printer on an office network.

In this buying guide we’ve rounded up all the current interchangeable lens cameras costing around $2000 and recommended the best. A fair minority of my B/W tests have had a color cast of some kind. This is using both the Advanced B&W Mode and the icc profiles that I have.

The Epson SureColor SC-P900 is the big sibling to the P700 we reviewed above. The range of four black or gray inks produces rich and deep monochrome prints. Print longevity is rated as 400 years for black and white and 200 for color. For glossy color and black & white photo output, the XP-970 also loses epson inkjet printers out to the more specialist Canon PIXMA Pro-200 printer. The Epson is smaller, lighter, and less expensive to buy, but has dearer ink costs. Yes, it is rather expensive for an inkjet, but Epson’s bottled ink is not, so you will soon see that money back if you plan to print lots of large photos.

EcoTank Photo can print fully borderless on a wide range of papers from thin vellums, to fine art and photographic papers, to even posterboards up to 1.3mm thick. There are two angled paper feed trays at the rear of the printer. You can use paper of up to 380 gsm, which includes the finest gallery-quality papers. The Epson Expression Photo HD XP offers larger prints than the XP-8700. But it doesn’t have the roll-feed option of the more expensive SureColor P700.

For an idea of its performance, you can read our review of the almost identical Epson Expression Photo XP-960. Producing colorful and high-quality photo prints, this auto-duplex office printer comes with many features including an SD card slot. Like all the best printers on the market, when it comes to printers for photos, you’ll find lots of different models.

The image test was good too, though not as good as that of the more expensive Smart Tank 7301. The colors were vivid, and there was no sign of chromatic abrasion. There was a little grain in the image, but nothing that better paper couldn’t fix. With tons of people now working from home, we’ve seen a renaissance for home printers and printers for small home offices. If you’re one of the many folks who need their own printer, CNET is here to help you find the right one. Engineered to be lightweight and portable, the minilab printer is easy to carry to on-site events.

His education saw him to studio work in Los Angeles and eventually landed him here at the GearLab. Our seasoned Review Analyst Austin Palmer brings to the mix over five years of consumer electronics testing and photography experience. His attention to specifics such as long-term printer costs is invaluable. With experience testing a range of technical products, Review Editor Genaveve Bradshaw brings a detail-oriented and creative eye to this project. Finally, Senior Review Editor Nick Miley is a photography hobbyist and occasional freelancer who doesn’t think a photo is complete until the print is in a frame and on the wall. This printer consistently delivers excellent prints with long-lasting pigment inks.