A home printer is the fastest photo lab you will ever use: the photograph is on paper a minute after you decide you want it. Once the ink is counted honestly it is rarely the cheapest, and for a gift meant to be kept for years it is usually not the best. For drafts, for tonight and for anything temporary, it is hard to beat.
So the useful question is not whether home printing is good. It is which job you are doing.
Home, a local lab, or made to order
| Home printer | Local photo lab | Made-to-order prints online | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed | Minutes | The same day, often within the hour | 5 to 14 days, order to doorstep |
| Paper | Whatever your printer can feed | Usually proper photo paper | Ours: 300 GSM matte card with a white border |
| Consistency | Drifts as ink runs low | Good | Good |
| Captions | You add them | Rarely | Ours: a caption under every print |
| Cost per print | Depends on ink and paper — work it out below | Low for small prints | Ours: ₹9 a print, from 30 prints |
| Best for | Drafts, tonight, temporary things | Today, enlargements, a few prints | Captioned sets, gifts, anything posted |
Each column wins somewhere. The mistake is using the first for a job the other two do better. Local print shop vs online printing →
What a home print actually costs
The price on the box is not the cost. Work it out from three numbers:
- The price of the ink. All the cartridges or bottles a colour photograph uses.
- How many photographs that ink really prints. The yield on the packet is usually measured on test pages with modest amounts of colour. A photograph covered edge to edge in colour uses far more, so expect a fraction of the stated figure.
- The paper. Glossy or matte photo paper is a cost per sheet of its own.
Divide the ink by the real number of photographs and add a sheet of paper. For many printers the answer is higher than people expect, and across a set of thirty it adds up. What home printing saves is a trip and a wait, not money.
Then add the ink you never see. An inkjet printer that sits unused for weeks can dry out and clog, and its cleaning cycles use ink of their own. A printer bought for two gifts a year can spend a good share of its ink keeping itself working. If you own one, printing a colour page every week or two keeps it healthier than saving it for the big job. Comparing cost per photograph →
Where home printing is the right answer
Anything needed tonight. Photographs for a party wall this evening, a quiz with pictures, a treasure hunt. Nothing else is faster. Prints for a milestone birthday party →
Drafts of something you are designing. This is the most useful job a home printer does for a DIY photo book: print two pages at actual size on plain paper and hold them. Text that looked fine on a screen may be too small, and a crop may cut off more than you noticed. It is the cheapest proof there is. How to make a photo book yourself →
Things meant to be temporary. A seating plan, a menu for one dinner, a birthday banner. Nobody will look at them in five years.
Words and documents. A letter, a recipe card, a copy of a ticket. Text prints well on ordinary paper at home.
Where it lets a gift down
Thick paper. Many home printers are made for ordinary paper and struggle to feed thick card, so photographs end up on thin sheets that curl and crease in an album or on a wall.
Colour drift. As one colour runs low, skin tones shift and skies streak. The first print and the thirtieth of a set can look like two different photographs.
Light. Home prints on paper and ink that are not made for each other can fade faster than lab prints on a sunny wall. The printer maker’s claims about how long prints last assume their own paper and their own ink. How long do printed photos actually last? →
Water. Some home inks smudge if the print gets damp — a problem for anything on a kitchen wall or in a bathroom. Our prints can take a glossy lamination for ₹3 extra each, which makes them water-resistant.
Binding. A stapled A4 magazine is sheets folded in half and nested, with the pages arranged so they fall in order once folded. Many printers can print a booklet that way, and a long-reach stapler can bind it. It is fine for a draft copy; for a gift, the paper and the finish give it away.
If you already own a photo printer
Use the maker’s own paper with the maker’s own ink. They are designed together, and mixing brands is where colour and longevity can suffer.
Set the paper type and the best photo quality in the print settings every time. The default is usually plain paper at normal quality.
Let prints dry before stacking them, and store them flat, out of the sun.
Print one test first, check it in daylight, and only then print the set.
Why your phone photographs get cropped
Most phone cameras take photographs in a 4:3 shape by default. The common photo paper size of 4 × 6 inches is 3:2 — longer and narrower — so something has to go. Left to fill the paper, the printer trims the top and bottom of a landscape photograph, which in a group shot is often where the heads are, and the sides of a portrait one.
Crop each photograph yourself before printing, to the exact shape of the paper, so you choose what is lost. Or print with a white border and let the whole photograph fit. For a square print, crop to a square and check nobody at the edge of a group loses an ear.
The same thinking applies to prints from us: ours come in 3x2, 3x3 and 2x3 inch sizes, and the digital preview shows how each photograph sits inside its frame before anything prints.
Home prints and glue
If the prints are going into a scrapbook or onto a card, give them a full day to dry before glue or tape touches them — fresh ink can smear under a glue stick. Use photo corners or double-sided tape rather than liquid glue, which can wrinkle thin paper and show through it. And handle prints by the edges; a thumbprint on a glossy sheet stays there.
The combination that works
Do the parts at home that home printing does well, and send out the rest.
Designing a photo book? Draft pages at home, then have the finished file printed. An A4 magazine printed from your own PDF costs ₹299 for 8 pages up to ₹699 for 40, stapled, on a 300 GSM matte cover and 170 GSM inner pages. Get your magazine printed →
Making a photo wall or a scrapbook? Do the arranging and the lettering yourself, and have the photographs printed properly. Thirty polaroid-style prints with your caption under each are ₹270, and we send a digital preview before they print. Polaroid wall layouts →
Worried the home prints will make the gift look cheap? They are often the reason it does. When handmade looks cheap →
Frequently asked
Is it cheaper to print photos at home? Often not, once the ink is counted properly — a photograph uses far more ink than the test pages on the packet. Home printing saves time and a trip rather than money.
Is a photo printer worth buying for one gift? Rarely. For one set of prints, a local lab or a made-to-order service usually costs less than a printer and its ink, and the prints tend to be better.
Do home-printed photos fade? They can, especially on a sunny wall when the paper and ink are not made for each other. Store them away from direct sunlight and use the printer maker’s paper.
Can I print a photo book at home? A draft, yes — many printers can print a booklet to fold and staple. For a gift, the thin paper and home finish show; have the final file printed instead.
What paper should I use for printing photos at home? The printer maker’s own photo paper, set as the paper type in the print settings. Ordinary office paper soaks up ink and makes photographs look dull.
Part of our guide to making a photo book yourself. See also: free software for designing a photo book and photo paper and printed pages.
Printed properly: Polaroid prints from ₹270 · Get your magazine printed