If you want to buy your own printer, there are a variety to choose from. Color printers for home or small business use usually range in price from $100 to $500. Printers in the middle of this range may offer higher print quality, but read reviews because some less expensive printers have ranked above more expensive ones. Generally, if you spend more, you'll gain faster output speed and additional features such as the ability to print directly from your camera's memory card or dual paper trays. On the downside, a printer can take up a lot of space, and ink can dry out if it is not used often.

Inkjet printers work by forcing little drops of ink through nozzles onto the paper. Today's inkjet printers can produce excellent prints. They are designed for home or small business use, and they range in price from about $60 to almost $400. With inkjet printers, you can output pictures on plain paper or more expensive thicker, glossy photographic-type paper stock. Pictures have better color and sharpness and more snap on glossy paper. If you are doing serious printing, you might print some work prints on plain paper and then your final prints on glossy.

Some inkjet printers have only three colors; typically they have three colors plus black. Avoid printers that do not have a black cartridge, as the quality is not as good. A few printers have more colors, such as six, seven, or even eight. Generally speaking, the more colors, the better the color rendition will be.

Small laser printers are more expensive than inkjet printers, and they are also much larger. They generally do not accept glossy paper. However, although up-front costs are higher, money can be saved in the long run on consumables such as toner, ink, and paper. These printers are best for net-worked groups of people who need high-speed quality output.

For many years, dye sublimation printers have been heralded as the top-of-the range output device for digital printing. Dye subs (for short) transfer images to paper using a plastic film or ribbon that's coated with color dyes. During the printing process, heating elements move across the film, causing the dye to fuse to the specially manufactured transfer paper. These heating elements make a separate pass through the printer for each color.

You really won't know how well you will like a printer until you try it out. Make sure you can return the printer if you don't like the results. However, many stores these days charge restocking fees, especially if you return a printer with partially used cartridges.

The advantages of dye sub printers are that they produce a high-quality, continuous-tone image with little or no evidence of pixelization. Dye sublimation printers are either three-color (cyan, magenta, and yellow) or four-color (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black).

There are several disadvantages to dye sub printers. The cost of consumables, particularly of the dye ribbon, is relatively high. Print paper for dye sub printers is also more expensive than photographic paper of equivalent size. Finally, questions have arisen about the stability of dyes over time, especially when prints come in contact with certain protective sleeves.

A handful of printers use thermal wax to heat pigment-carrying wax from a print ribbon. They are faster than dye sublimation printers because they use sticks of wax or ribbons of dye rather than ink cartridges. The technique is similar to that seen on fax machines that print on thermal paper. The major disadvantages of thermo-autochrome or thermal wax printers are that they reproduce color using a half toning process and that they can only use specially manufactured paper.