The best art printers can really help artists and illustrators save money and present their art in the best way possible. The top art printers in my list below come with the latest features, including WiFi and Alexa support, but also deliver gallery-quality prints on the best paper.
Being able to save money on your prints, frame them for your clients and sell your art ready to hang is a great time and money saver. Being able to do all of this from home or your studio will cut costs and enable you to sell your art in a new way. You won't have to throw money at a print shop or a repro house, and you'll be able print your work at a moment's notice – even in the middle of the night.
For best results, you'll want an art printer capable of better colour reproduction and clarity than the average office printer. Ideally, it will use pigment-based inks, because dye-based inks don't look as good. You'll also want the option of printing in larger formats, and on heavier, fine art media.
To help you out, I've gathered together the best art printers for home and studio use today. These cover a range of budgets, and include everything from premium machines to cheaper models and even a fun portable printer for immediate results. If you need to compare or need a printer for other uses, then read our guides to the best printers for photos and the best black and white printers. Also, scroll down for an FAQ on all you need to know when considering buying one of the best art printers.
The best art printers available now
If you're in a hurry, you probably don't need to read much further than this. Because take it from us, the Epson EcoTank ET-7750 is the best art printer you can buy today.
For starters, it prints at very high quality, thanks to its combination of CMYK dyes and an additional black pigment ink for improved contrast. It can cope with paper up to 300gsm and up to A3 size. Your running costs are relatively low, as it uses a set of five high-capacity ink tanks instead of cartridges. And you even get enough ink for up to 3,400 prints, right out of the box.
Admittedly, it's not the cheapest art printer on our list. But the value it offers overall is excellent. The only reason you might want to look elsewhere is if you're short on space, as it is quite big (74.4 x 52.6 x 45.2cm) and bulky (weighing just over 11kg).
Short on cash? Then the best art printer for you is the Canon Pixma iP8750. This affordable device can print a bordered sheet of A3+ in full colour in around two minutes. And with five dye-based inks, plus a pigment black, the results are worth waiting for.
Plus, if you want to save more money, you can buy high-yield ink cartridges that cost you less than standard cartridges. That makes this one of the cheapest art printers to run, as well as to buy.
Here's another good option for great-looking prints at larger scale. The Canon PIXMA PRO-200 will cost you about twice as much as the iP8750 (number two on our list), but you'll get a corresponding jump in quality when it comes to colour reproduction.
This is a relatively speedy printer, too. It goes up to A3+ and even larger; it'll also do panoramic prints up to 990cm wide. It delivers lovely sharp prints that are dry almost straight away. And it's versatile; working with set of eight inks, it's capable of printing on anything from standard paper to heavier fine art media.
If you're mainly looking for an all-round office printer, but are likely to need the occasional art print, then the Epson Expression Photo HD XP-15000 is worth checking out. Its main A4 tray is ideal for loading with ordinary paper for office work, while its rear feed can handle A3+ and heavier media for producing good-looking art prints.
With six dye-based inks, you'll get decent colour reproduction and contrast, although not at such high quality as other printers on this list. On the plus side, this printer is compatible with Epson's XL cartridges, which helps keep running cost low. We'd also suggest signing up for Amazon Dash Replenishment, which means printer will automatically order new cartridges for you when ink is running low.
The Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 prints at up to A2, and does panoramic prints up to 1.2m, which makes it the best art printer for large projects.
It offers superb colour reproduction and sharpness via a set of 12 pigment-based Lucia Pro ink cartridges, with an additional chroma optimiser for giving work on glossy paper a smooth top coat. It'll produce an A2 print in around six minutes. And thanks to the high-quality inks the results are stunning, especially when using matte and fine art media.
This is by no means the cheapest art printer on our list. But if you want big, beautiful prints of your artwork, then it will do an exceptionally good job.
If money is no object, then the Epson SureColor SC-P5000 should be top of your shopping list. You can print up to A2+ and panoramic prints. I'll take the heaviest fine art media in its stride. And its print quality is quite exceptional.
The SC-P5000 has an internal colour calibration sensor, and that combined with a set of 10 Epson UltraChrome HDX pigment inks means that it can reproduce 99 per cent of the Pantone solid coated colour range.
This by far the most expensive option on our list, as well as the heaviest, at 52kg. But if you're printing exhibition work and high-end art prints for customers, then it should ultimately pay for itself.
Architects and engineers will need different things from a printer than artists and graphics designers. And so if you want to print crisp, large-scale line work such as blueprints and building plans, the HP DesignJet Studio is the printer to go for.
This dye-based A1 plotter also has great eco-credentials because it's made with as many recycled materials as possible, using low and renewable energy construction processes. Note, though, that it only has a basic set of CMYK inks and will struggle with smooth gradients and photographic quality, so it's not really suitable as an all-purpose art printer.
The HP Envy Photo 7830 is the best art printer for anyone looking for value for money from their new machine. This inkjet printer is an affordable machine that produces quality prints at a consistent rate.
The price point is of a slightly more expensive home printer but with the results of a good studio machine. It uses the cheaper end ink cartridges, and HP has a good support and subscription system that will record your use and get replacement ink to you before you know you need it. This ease of use stretches to a good mobile app to manage your printer and settings.
The downside is the HP Envy Photo 7830 art printer has a limited size use, so it will only go to A4. It can print on a variety of card stocks up to A4, but this will sap more ink; so be warned the more interesting projects could get costly.
The Canon Selphy CP1300 is the portable printer that makes digital art on the move a little more fun. You can use this tiny printer – it's small enough to slip into a shoulder bag – as it's primary to print lab-quality photos directly from your camera, which is great for scrapbooking and collecting reference photos. But, the Canon Selphy CP1300 can also be used to print-off art directly from your iPad or other tablet.
This printer uses dye sublimation for quality prints and each only takes less than a minute to print. The small LCD screen enables you to set prints from the machine itself or use the Cannon app, which works with Apple devices. The app can be a little temperamental and the printer has a tendency to auto-crop areas of the image, which could be frustrating when printing art from a tablet.
But, as a mobile printer the Canon Selphy CP1300 is a fun way to take your digital art on the go; it's also a great way to paint and collect references when out and about so digital plein air painters will love it. I'd suggest this is used in tandem with one of the larger home printers on my list. (Take a look at our buying guide to the best portable printers for more like this.)
The best art printers: frequent questions
What type of printer is good for art prints?
Inkjet printers are the best for quality art prints, and choose the highest colour ink system you can, ideally (they start at 6 and run to a 10-colour process). There are dye-based ink printers and also pigment ink printers (the ideal) to consider too.
What is a good printer resolution for art prints?
The best resolution for art prints is 300dpi, this is the same as a professional printer would need for magazines printing. The higher the 'dots per inch' the better the output and the smoother the finish.
What do I need to achieve art prints at home?
Aside from one of the best art printers on my list, I'd also suggest you need a couple of things. First, either a separate flatbed scanner or an art printer with a built-in scanner; you will also need a good DSLR camera and computer or tablet. Take a look at our guides to the best photo scanners and the best cameras for artists for more choice.
What paper is best for printing art?
First you will ideally be using Fine Art Paper, which will be called Giclee Printing, Rag Paper, Cotton Paper and so forth (but some will be trial and error and check your printer's depth of paper restrictions). With a good art printer this paper will work. One tip, always print as matt as a glossy print can hide any paint strokes and leave detail looking flat. Matt prints offer the same impression as a real watercolour or oil canvas.
Can you print sketchbook and moleskin pages?
So, while technically with some art printers you can tear our pages and use this it's not ideal. In fact, you'd be better to use your sketchbook as intended to record all those lovely natural marks and then scan and print these pages.
Can canvas art make good prints?
Yes, of course. There are two ways to turn a canvas painting into an art print. You can either take a high resolution digital photo and print from this – you'll need to ideally take this on a white wall with direct lighting – or use a large flatbed scanner. A handheld scanner could be used but this can result in errors. In either case you'll need to open the digital file in Photoshop or a similar app and tinker with the levels to ensure none of the detail is lost.
Related articles:
- The best photo scanners
- 3 high-end printers for professional work
- Cheap 3D printers: the 8 best affordable 3D printers
