Remember, though, that many ink jet printers, like some Desktop Photo Printer and sophisticated multifunction devices like all-in-Ones come with built-in card readers that can take the digital files from your camera's card and print them right away, without using a computer.

But simply getting your pictures to the printer isn't the entire battle. To get the best possible photo quality from your printer, you should try to have both your camera and your printer support additional standards.

You'll find that you have a number of different printer types to choose from: general-purpose, photo, portable, snapshot photo, and multifunction. Faced with so many choices, you have to ask yourself how you plan to use the printer.

If this new printer will be the only one you'll use, and you'd like to produce decent-looking text documents as well as high-quality photos, then you'll most likely need a general-purpose ink jet printer.

 

On the other hand, perhaps you have a trusty old laser that handles all your text printing, and your new printer is going to be dedicated solely to printing photos and color graphics. If that's the case, then you can start by looking at photo-centric printers.

 

Then again, if your home office or small business needs a device that scans, faxes, copies, prints text, and can produce great-looking photos to boot, you'll find some good multifunction ink jet printers.

 

If you're willing to trade stellar quality on one or more of these functions for the convenience of having one device that does it all, you should select one that excels at the function you plan to use most.