Two main types of printer are available here, the dye sub printer and the inkjet. Dye sub printers are usually compact and print postcard sized 6x4 inch prints in about 1 minute. Prints are normally laminated to protect them from fingerprints and are often printed using ready cut sheets and a ribbon. Inkjet printers are more your traditional home colour printer and use ink tanks rather than ribbon. A4 is the most common but for people wanting larger prints, A3 inkjets are available from HP, Canon and Epson.
The Selphy range of dye sublimation printers are compact and portable allowing the user to produce excellent photo quality 6x4 inch prints direct from any PictBridge compatible camera. The Pixma range of inkjet printers are excellent multi purpose printers, quick prints and very easy to set up and use.
One of the big names in ink jet printer technology, Epson's range spans the superb PictureMate 6x4 inch portable photo printers through to truly brilliant A3 printers with UltraChrome colour inks for long lasting colour and black and white images.
Hi Touch have developed their fantastic table top printers with a unique hand controller that has it's own colour LCD screen. This makes Hi Touch printers completely self contained photo labs.
Kodak Printer docks produce 6x4 inch photo prints in approx 60 seconds direct from your camera. Your Kodak camera actually sits onto the top of the printer dock and will charge your cameras battery in approx 3.5 hours. Some models will also accepts a USB pen drive.
Topped off with the super P440 dye sub printer, Olympus produce several excellent dye sub printers that allow the user at the touch of a button to print his images direct from memory cards or connected camera or even your PC.
Polaroid have developed ZINK technology which means Zero Ink. The ZINK paper contains hundreds of millions of dye crystals (Cyan, Magenta and Yellow) that sensitively respond to heat pulses, and transform an apparently blank sheet of ZINK photo paper into a full colour image. The prints are immediately dry, smudge proof and even water resistant.