"Until a photo is printed, it’s just a jumble of binary code buried on a hard drive." It's time to be your own biggest fan and start printing your favorites!

For decades, inkjet printers have often been the subject of fear and loathing, earning a notorious reputation along the way. Especially for photo printing, common complaints include prints coming out the wrong size on the page, colors being wrong and images looking too dark.

However, all that can usually be very easily rectified by paying a little attention to the settings in your printer driver, matching them to the right size and type of paper you’re using, and applying even approximate calibration to your monitor screen.

Then there’s the cost. Buy a brand new inkjet printer, and the cartridges might seem to run out almost as soon as you’ve set it up and printed a few photos. And guess what – a replacement set of cartridges might cost even more than the printer itself!

Drop for drop, printer ink has been likened to costing more than pricey examples of perfume, champagne, and Scotch whisky. Now that’s something you can’t get around with any amount of tweaking your printer driver settings.

But here’s the thing. I love creating ‘proper’ photo prints from my digital images with one of the best photo printers. Indeed, I’ve spoken with professional photographers in the past who have said they view printing their photos as the final step in the creative process – and that, until a photo is printed, it’s just a jumble of binary code buried on a hard drive.

I also happen to think that a printed photograph reveals levels of detail that are completely missed on a monitor screen, and that they demand to be viewed in a way that on-screen images simply can’t offer.

So what’s the answer? I have to confess that I’ve often wanted to create prints from some of my digital photos but the cost has put me off. That’s before I discovered my new best friend and creative partner, in the shape of a Canon Pixma G650 / G620 / G660, as sold in Europe, USA and Australia respectively.

As one of Canon’s ‘MegaTank’ printers, it ditches cartridges and runs on relatively large ink tanks instead. It comes with enough ink to print 3,800 6x4-inch photos and replacement bottles of ink are super-cheap, when you eventually need them.

Not just for postcard sized prints, this Canon can print borderless photos up to A4 or 8.5 x 11 inches in size, as well as panoramic and banner prints up to 1.2m / nearly 4ft in length. And what’s more, it runs on six dye-based inks that are formulated for optimum photo fidelity of both color and black-and-white images.

But this Canon printer isn’t the only show in town. My colleague, Hillary K Grigonis, recently wrote "Paper jams, weird colors, wonky connectivity – if there’s a piece of tech that’s highest on my Most Frustrating list, it’s printers".

Be that as it may, she says she’s fallen in love with the Epson EcoTank ET-8550. This printer also runs on six dye-based inks for an extended, photo-realistic gamut, as well as featuring ‘EcoTanks’ and cheap bottle-fed replenishments. However, it’s a larger-format printer, capable of outputting A3+ or 13x19-inch borderless photo prints.

I’d heartily recommend both of these Canon and Epson printers and feel pretty sure that they’d kindle a real love of photo printing, if you’re not feeling the love already. I’ve also spoken with professional photographers who firmly believe that printing their work and studying the results has helped them to become better photographers.

Who knows where this journey might take you, both in terms of your creativity and photographic skills, as well as a passion for printing that might see you stepping up to a truly pro-grade printer for exhibiting and selling your work.