Best Printer For Art Prints (Artist Recommendation)
If you’re an artist, then you’ll know how important it is that your final project looks as good as it can. I know that I certainly spend hours touching up every last part until my art is perfect.
However, it’s also essential that you print off the art prints with the best printer, giving your work the quality it deserves.
I’ve tried a wide range of different printers in an effort to get the highest quality for my art prints, and I’ve narrowed it down to the top 5 best ones, and read here for how to make art prints. .
You need the highest quality printing to do your art prints justice, and the top 5 printers in my list below will help get you that.
The best printer that I found for art prints ended up being the Epson WorkForce WF-7710, which gives you borderless prints and a quality that you’d expect of a print-shop.
1. Epson WorkForce WF-7710 Wireless Wide-Format Printer
I’m beginning my list with this high-quality printer from Epson, the WorkForce WF-7710. It’s a wireless printer that does wide-format printing, and it’s got excellent print quality and color too. You can buy one from Amazon here.
Pros
- Wireless printing is easy
- PrecisionCore allows borderless prints
- Great print quality
Cons
- Very large, so make sure you have room
- Gets through some ink cartridges quickly
What Does It Offer?
Epson has a reputation for making high-quality printers, and you’ll see a few others on this list, so you can expect quality when you’re buying this.
The first thing you need to know, though, is that the printer is very large. As a result, you’ll want to make sure you have the room to store it and access it easily.
On the plus side, the printer is wireless, which makes printing extremely easy.
I was able to print from smartphones and tablets, which allowed me to quickly and simply print my art prints from wherever I was accessing them.
It’s also a very versatile machine, acting as a printer, scanner, fax machine, and copier. Better yet, it’s easy to control too with its color touchscreen.
As for the printing itself, the WorkForce WF-7710 uses PrecisionCore to power it, which allows it to create prints of a very high quality.
When I inspected my art prints, I thought that they looked as good as if I’d had them done at a print-shop!
The maximum print resolution that it can achieve is 4800 x 2400 dpi, which gives you great fidelity prints.
“Dpi” stands for “dots per inch”, and is a reflection of the number of ink dots you’ll get per inch on the paper. The higher the number, the greater the clarity of your print.
On top of that, the machine comes with four DURABrite Ultra ink cartridges: 1 Cyan, 1 Magenta, 1 Black, and 1 Yellow.
It was handy that it came with these starter cartridges, because I found that the printer can certainly get through cartridges quickly.
As a result, you’ll want to be buying and using high-capacity cartridges so that you don’t have to replace them as frequently.
Thankfully, it is an economical printer at least, using 80% less power than color laser printers.
You’ll also be able to get borderless prints of a solid size, measuring 13 inches by 19 inches at most. This should be a good size for a lot of art prints, and it definitely suited me well.
The tray can hold 250 sheets of paper, but holds 20 sheets of photo paper. There is also a rear feed for speciality paper to go in, helping to keep things uncluttered and efficient.
As for the price, it’s admittedly expensive. However, given its size and the fact that it offers the quality you’d expect of a print-shop, the price is understandable.
2. Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 Wireless Wide-Format Printer
Next up on our list is another entry from Epson, the ET-8550, although this one is considerably cheaper than the previous printer.
As a result, it’s especially good value, and it’s also much smaller too. You can buy one from Amazon here.
Pros
- Uses high-yield ink bottles instead of cartridges, which saves you money in not having to replace them as regularly
- Prints have great tonal range thanks to gray ink
- High-quality printing
Cons
- Make sure you’re not accidentally getting the 8500, because its prints are smaller
- Some people have issues with the network setup
What Does It Offer?
First things first, the ET-8550 from Epson is a good value printer, costing much less than the previous one we looked at.
On top of that, though, you’ll be saving a lot of money further down the line, too, thanks to its use of ink bottles instead of ink cartridges.
As anyone will know, ink cartridges will often run out quickly, and you’ll have to spend a lot of money regularly buying replacements. This isn’t the case with this printer, though, because it uses ink bottles instead.
These are low-cost and high-yield, each replacement bottle giving you the same amount of ink as 100 individual ink cartridges.
In fact, Epson says you can print up to 2 years with the included and replacement ink bottle set, meaning you won’t have to buy replacements for a long while.
I certainly had great results from the included ink bottles, which gave me loads of art prints without even getting close to running out. They really do save both money and time.
As for the printing quality itself, you’ll get lab-quality, which is ideal for your art prints. The printer offers a maximum of 5760 x 1440 dpi resolution, which provided my art prints with a great deal of clarity.
The high-accuracy printhead also gives the prints very vibrant colors, as well as text, which made my prints really pop. It uses Claria ET Premium 6 color inks.
As for size, the printer can do borderless photos with dimensions up to 13 inches by 19 inches, which should be a solid size for your art prints.
It can also be very easy to use too, thanks to its wireless capabilities. Not only can you print from your mobile device, you can also set up and monitor the printer from it too.
If you don’t want to use your mobile, though, there is a color touchscreen on the printer to use too that I found was easy to navigate.
3. HP Envy Pro 6475 Wireless Printer
This entry isn’t going to be for everyone, but I’m including it because it’s an extremely good value choice, and a good pick for those artists who aren’t able to afford the more expensive printers.
This printer is extremely cheap when compared to the others, yet I found it still retains a solid print quality. You can buy one from Amazon here.
Pros
- Extremely cheap
- Comes with two years of free ink
Cons
- The quality is solid enough, but it’s very far from the best
What Does It Offer?
The key feature with the HP Envy Pro 6475 is the price. Compared to other printers, especially the ones on this list, this is extremely cheap at (typically) just a few hundred dollars.
With that being said, you can’t expect the greatest quality as a result, but I found that it still does solid work.
Its color resolution is certainly still impressive, and looked to me quite close to the results I got from the other printers.
If you print from a computer, and use selected HP photo papers, then the printer is capable of as much as 4800 x 1200 dpi.
There are other ways to print from it besides the computer, such as smartphones, it just means that you may not be getting the dpi you want.
This connectivity makes it very easy to use, though, with a self-healing Wi-Fi to ensure you’re able to connect to it almost always.
Another big benefit with the Envy Pro 6475 is that it comes with two years of ink for free.
When I received the printer, it came with a redeemable code that gave me 2 years of Instant Ink (based around printing 100 pages a month).
This definitely meant that I didn’t have to replace the ink cartridges for a while, which saved me further money on top of the printer’s low price.
Essentially, the bottom line with this printer is that it’s solid and affordable, but it’s not going to give you the very highest printing quality.
If you don’t mind your art prints being a little less crisp than they would be with other printers, then this is a bargain pick.
4. Canon PIXMA MG3620 Wireless Printer
If you thought the HP Envy Pro 6475 was amazing value (which it was!), then this PIXMA printer from Canon is even cheaper.
This isn’t necessarily a printer that’s made for professional use, so it won’t be the very best for art prints, but I found that it achieved solid color quality – especially for its price. You can buy one from Amazon here.
Pros
- Extremely cheap
- Good size
- Impressive 4800 x 1200 dpi
Cons
- Limited to small size prints
- Solid, but not the greatest quality
What Does It Offer?
There’s a lot to like about this printer, and it’s an extremely affordable choice for your art prints if they’re quite small in size. Small in size, too, is the printer, which is neat and shouldn’t take up much space at all.
I managed to fit it in with no problem. On top of that, it’s extremely cheap, with one of the lowest printer prices on the market.
Despite its size and price, though, the printer is actually capable of an impressively high quality resolution. For color, its maximum resolution is 4800 x 1200 dpi.
As you can see, this is reasonably close to the other, far more expensive printers, and it gave me art prints that could almost rival them.
This is especially impressive given the low cost of this one, and it’s sure to give your art prints a high level of clarity and quality.
With that being said, your art prints are going to be limited in terms of their size. Unfortunately, the MG3620 only has a maximum printing size of 8.5 inches by 11 inches.
This is considerably smaller than the other printers on this list, and it meant that I wasn’t able to make a lot of my prints as big as I wanted. However, if you only produce small art prints anyway, it won’t be an issue for you.
Additionally, you’re also limited in the paper that you use, because the print won’t be able to handle heavy card stock or heavy paper. It works best for medium weight papers.
You’ve also got a variety of ways that you can print from it, such as Google Cloud Print and Airprint.
This makes printing easier than ever, allowing you to wirelessly send printing commands, even using your phone or tablet. On top of that, the print is all-in-one, allowing you to print, scan, and copy.
5. Epson Expression Photo HD XP-15000 Wide-Format Wireless Printer
The final entry on my list goes to the XP-15000, another printer from the reliable Epson. It’s reasonably expensive, though less than half the price of their WorkForce WF-7710.
It offers fantastic use of color that really made my art prints pop. You can buy one from Amazon here.
Pros
- Very impressive resolution
- Great color and quality
- Reasonable price
Cons
- Cartridges can run out quickly
What Does It Offer?
This is a brilliant choice if you want a printer that will give your fantastic, high-quality art prints. Better yet, it’s got a very reasonable price, especially when compared to other printers on the market.
You’ll get professional ultra HD photo quality when printing, and this is helped by the terrific resolution.
Its maximum resolution is 5760 x 1440 dpi, which is the same as the ET-8550 offered earlier in our list.
This is an extremely impressive dpi, and it meant that my art prints had a fantastic level of clarity and detail in them.
On top of detail, it also offers fantastically rich and vibrant colors. This is because it uses 6 cartridges: Black, Magenta, Cyna, Yellow, and then an additional two of Red and Gray.
This means that the colors in my art prints had a lot more depth than some other printers offered, giving them an ultra wide gamut of color, because most printers will only offer the first 4 cartridge types.
As for the size of your prints, this will give you borderless prints up to 13 inches by 19 inches.
This has been the typical size for the printers on our list to offer, and it’s a solid size: not the biggest, but far from the smallest. It suited me!
Couple it with the dpi and vibrant color, and your art prints will be solidly sized and perfectly detailed.
Buyers’ Guide
While looking at the printers in our list, you’ll have noticed a few features cropping up again and again, and these are the kinds of things that you’re going to want to look out for when you’re shopping for a printer for your art prints.
We’ve collected together, and explained, the features below.
Print Size
If you’re making art prints, then you’ll likely already have an idea of how big you want the prints to be.
This is especially true if you’re selling them off. However, you need to make sure that your chosen printer is capable of printing the size that you want.
Most of the printers on our list offered a maximum size of 13 inches by 19 inches, which is a solid size for your art prints.
However, one of our picks only offered a significantly smaller size, and it’s ones like that you will need to be cautious of before buying.
DPI Resolution
We repeatedly covered the dpi resolution throughout our list, because it’s used as a measure of the clarity and detail of the printing quality.
“Dpi” stands for “dots by inch”, and it tells you how many dots your print will have per inch. The higher the dpi, the higher the quality of the picture.
You’ll want a printer that offers a resolution up to 4800 x 2400 dpi – or more.
Two of the printers in our list did offer even more than this, while still maintaining a reasonable price, and they improved the clarity of my art prints even further.
Price Tag
We covered a broad range of prices, but it was clear that even on the cheap end you could still get printers that offered impressive quality.
Ink Cartridges
Replacing ink cartridges regularly costs both money and time, so you’ll want to find a printer that uses its ink economically, while still getting great print results.
This way, you won’t be having to buy replacement cartridges too often, which I’ve always found an expensive burden!
Scanner
If you’re scanning your artwork onto the computer first, then you might want a printer that has a scan feature too.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Paper Should I Print My Art On?
It’s best to print your artwork onto fine art paper. Giclèe paper in particular is extremely luxurious, and is used by artists when they want the highest-quality reproductions of their work. I also frame my art prints to save money, read our how to frame an art print for cheap for tips.
Final Thoughts
If you’re looking for the best printer for your art prints, use our list and Buyers’ Guide to help decide and if you are interested in printing vinyl stickers read our buyers guide! Our top pick is the Epson Workforce defiantly worth checking out.
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