Best Printer for Art Prints and Drawing References

Updated on 02/09/2026 by Rita Moreira

If you draw from photographs, the quality of your printed reference decides how far your drawing can go. A muddy print hides the very details you are trying to capture: the soft edge of an eyelid, the faint reflected light under a chin, the exact grey where skin turns into shadow. Get a clean print and half the guesswork disappears.

Below I walk through what actually matters when you choose a printer for art prints and reference photos, which real machines you can buy in the UK, and where I would spend the money (and where I would not).

What kind of printer do you actually need to print drawing references?

To print reference photos for realistic drawing, you want a photo inkjet printer with at least six inks, not a laser machine or a basic two-cartridge office printer. Six or more inks give you the smooth skin tones and subtle greys a portrait needs. Ink quality and paper matter more than the headline resolution once you clear roughly 600 dpi.

A standard home printer with only cyan, magenta, yellow and black tends to band in the mid-greys, which is exactly where a face lives. The moment you add light cyan, light magenta and a grey ink, gradients become continuous and you stop losing the quiet tonal steps that make a drawing read as real.

The good news for you: a printer that is excellent for reference photos is the same one people buy for selling art prints. So this guide doubles up, whether you print to draw from or print to frame.

Do inkjet or laser printers work better for reference photos?

Inkjet wins for reference photos, and it is not close. Inkjet lays down tiny overlapping droplets that blend into continuous tone, so skin, hair and out-of-focus backgrounds come out smooth. Laser printers fuse toner powder, which is fast and cheap per page for text but renders photos with a slightly flat, screened look.

Laser is the right tool for line art, worksheets or a grid overlay you plan to trace. For a portrait reference where you are chasing tonal nuance, inkjet is the standard. Here is the honest trade-off between the two.

Dye or pigment ink, and how many inks?

This is the choice that separates a decent print from a professional one. Dye inks soak into the paper and give punchy, vivid colour, ideal and cheaper for references you will draw from. Pigment inks sit on the surface in solid particles and resist fading for decades, which is why the giclée print, an inkjet process used by galleries, usually relies on pigment.

The term giclée simply describes high-quality inkjet printing on archival paper, a label popularised in the 1990s according to its documented history. In the UK the Fine Art Trade Guild sets the recognised standard for what may be sold as a giclée. If you only need references, dye is fine. If you want to sell prints of your finished drawings, pigment is worth the premium.

On ink count, my rule of thumb is simple:

1. 4 inks: office use, avoid for art.
2. 6 inks: the sensible minimum for skin tones and references.
3. 8 to 12 inks: gallery-grade, adds grey inks for true neutral tones.

Best printer for art prints at home

For printing at home, a six-ink photo inkjet is the sweet spot. In the UK the Canon PIXMA range is the obvious starting point: the mid-range PIXMA TS models add extra photo inks over the basic office units and handle A4 references comfortably. Epson’s Expression Photo line is the direct rival, also six inks, and both are stocked widely.

What I would look for over any single spec: a dedicated photo grey or light-grey ink, borderless A4, and support for proper photo paper rather than plain copier paper. That combination does more for a printed face than chasing the biggest dpi number on the box.

Best printer for art prints on a budget

On a budget, the running cost matters as much as the sticker price. This is where Epson’s EcoTank range earns its keep: instead of cartridges, you top up refillable ink bottles, which drops the cost per photo dramatically over a year of heavy reference printing. The machine costs more upfront and pays you back if you print often.

If you print only occasionally, a cartridge-based Canon PIXMA is cheaper to buy and perfectly good. Be honest about your habits: cartridges quietly become the expensive option the moment you print several references a week. I would rather own one reliable six-ink machine than two cheap ones.

Best printer for art prints in A3

A3 changes what you can do, because a full-page portrait reference at A3 shows pores, single hairs and edge transitions that vanish on A4. Two routes exist in the UK. The Epson EcoTank ET-8550 prints up to A3 with refillable tanks and six inks, a strong all-rounder for references and prints alike.

For selling work, the dedicated A3+ photo printers step up: the Canon PIXMA PRO-200 uses eight dye inks for vivid prints, while the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 uses a ten-ink pigment set built for archival giclée output. All three are real, currently sold machines, not discontinued models. Match the choice to whether you are drawing from the print or framing it.

Where to buy a printer and paper in the UK

For the printer itself, Currys, John Lewis and Amazon.co.uk carry the Canon and Epson lines above, and John Lewis often bundles a longer guarantee that is worth having on a photo machine. Buy the printer where the warranty suits you; the ink price over time matters far more than a few pounds on the box.

For paper, do not settle for plain copier stock. A matte or lustre photo paper around 200 to 260 gsm holds tone far better, and art shops like Jackson’s Art and Cass Art stock proper inkjet photo and fine-art papers alongside your pencils. When I print a reference I want to draw from for hours, the paper makes the difference between a sharp guide and a soft, unhelpful blur.

If you are still building your kit, it is worth reading up on how to choose and use reference photos, and on which paper actually suits pencil work. A printed reference is only as good as what you do next: I always keep a copy of drawing what you see rather than what you assume in mind while I work, and if the whole workflow feels like a shortcut, this piece on whether drawing from a photo is cheating is a reassuring read.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best printer for art prints on a budget?

On a budget, an Epson EcoTank inkjet is usually the smartest buy because its refillable tanks cut the cost per photo well below cartridge machines. It costs more upfront and repays you if you print references often.

If you print only now and then, a cartridge-based Canon PIXMA is cheaper to buy and prints lovely six-ink photos. Weigh your real printing habits, not just the shelf price, before deciding, because cartridges quietly become the expensive option once you print several references every week.

Can I print A3 art prints at home?

Yes, and it is easier than it used to be. The Epson EcoTank ET-8550 prints up to A3 with refillable tanks, and it doubles happily as a reference printer and a print maker for finished work.

For selling prints, dedicated A3+ machines like the Canon PIXMA PRO-200 or the pigment-based imagePROGRAF PRO-300 give gallery-grade results with eight or ten inks. All of these are currently sold in the UK through Currys, John Lewis and Amazon.co.uk, so you can compare them in person before you commit.

What do people on Reddit recommend for art prints?

Across art subreddits the advice is consistent: buy a photo inkjet with six or more inks and spend on decent paper. Epson EcoTank comes up constantly for low running costs, and Canon PIXMA for reliable colour.

The other repeated tip is to stop chasing dpi and start testing papers, since the same file looks very different on plain stock versus a proper 250 gsm lustre sheet. Most people find the paper upgrade improves their references far more than spending extra on a higher-resolution machine.