A photo booth is an excellent startup. Whether it’s general events, weddings, corporate events, educational events or fundraisers, they all have space for a photo booth. A photo booth contains many things but a printer is the most essential one. While planning your venture you must have a look at the list of the best printers for photo booth. Over the past few years, photo booths have exploded in terms of numbers. They have become one of the staples of a multi-billion-dollar wedding and event industry. Whether you are a new start-up choosing your first printer or long-time owner reconsidering your choices.
This article will help you in your journey to the best printer for your photo booth. Choosing a printer for photo booth depends on multiple things like cost, reliability, quality, etc. Colour accuracy and sizes of photographs along with compatibility of the variety of paper are also important factors. Different features like connectivity and compatibility with different operating systems also play a major role. On top of that, all these features must fit in your budget. All this process makes the process bit tricky. After spending hours on research with photography professionals, discussions and tests, here’s our list of best photo booth printers.
Best Printers for Photo Booth 2021
[table “” not found /]HP Sprocket Portable Photo Printer
HP Sprocket is one of the best printers for photo booth in the smallest size. With its compact size, it allows you to carry it anywhere in your pocket. The only drawback it has that it can’t print on any media bigger than 2×3 inches (5.0×7.6 cm). HP Sprocket uses “Zink” technology, originally developed by Polaroid to print images. This inkless printer required a special kind of paper, which are coated with multiple layers of transparent dye while manufacturing.
The printer activates these dyes with different heat intensity from a thermal print head. This whole process gives you a full-color image without any mess. When it comes to the quality of the image its nowhere close to the quality provided by traditional printers. The printer is capable of holding a pack of 10 papers sheet at once. With wireless connectivity, you can connect it to almost any device. That includes your smartphones and laptops. With a single charge, you can print up to 30 prints. It takes around 90 minutes to fully charge your printer.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 👍 No ink refills. | 👎 Expensive prints. |
| 👍 Very easy to use. | |
| 👍 Fun app. |
Canon SELPHY CP1300
Canon SELPHY CP1300 is our first choice in the list of the best printers for photo booth. It produces postcard size images (6×4 inches) with excellent quality. You can connect it to your phone, laptop, tablets or a camera with wifi. You can also connect it to any USB medium or insert your SD card to take prints. The printer uses the sublimation process due to which you get instantly dry photos. The images you print doesn’t only look great but also are water resistant.
Connectivity is made very easy with help of Canon PRINT app3. You will find the design sleek and portable. It has a 3.2″ LCD screen which allows you to choose, edit and print. The paper tray capacity is 18 sheets of postcard size which is sometimes not enough. It is pretty easy to setup and use. The picture quality it produces is good and claimed 100-year longevity by Canon. To increase portability Canon also offers a battery pack for separate purchase.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 👍 Innovative and customizable printing. | 👎 Does not print larger than 4x6. |
| 👍 Print directly. | |
| 👍 Multiple connectivity options. |
Prynt Pocket Instant Photo Printer
Prynt Pocket is another gem in the list of the best printers for photo booth specially designed for iPhone. It is an excellent design which converts your iPhone into a Polaroid camera. iPhones are well known for their high-quality pictures. Using the Prynt Pocket is very easy. All you need to do is connect your iPhone into Prynt Pocket and attach it via the connector. The unit comes with clamps which can be adjusted to different sizes based on your iPhone model.
Once everything is done you need to open the companion Prynt app which can be downloaded from the App Store. It gives you two options to click the shutter. First is an inbuilt physical button in the unit while second is present in the app. The best feature of this app is “Harry Potter style images”. When you take pictures, the app saves a small video clip. The app has a scan feature which enables you to scan printed pictures. Once scanned it quickly identifies the image and plays the video associated with it.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 👍 Easy to use. | 👎 Can only load 10 sheets of paper at a time. |
| 👍 Lightweight and fits into some outerwear pockets. | |
| 👍 Matte body. |
Kodak Mini 2 Portable Photo Printer
Kodak Mini 2 HD Instant photo printer is an excellent addition to the list of best printers for photo booth. With its zero ink technology, this printer produces high-quality photos. It has a very sleek and smooth design. You will find a well-placed power button, a charging port, and a photo slot. There is also a small space for changing cartridges. The unit comes in five different colors. When it comes to connectivity the unit is completely wireless. You can connect it with any Android or iOS device to print. It also provides an app for both android and ios which has multiple filters, templates, and features.
The NFC compatibility makes the process of connecting android devices very easy. You only have to tap your android device on top of the printer and you are connected. The printer comes with a 620 mAH rechargeable lithium battery. It takes 1.5 hours to fully charge and prints more than 20 pictures until the battery is fully drained. Printing pictures are fast and it hardly takes around 50 seconds. The photos are completely waterproof and fingerprint proof.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 👍 Easy to set up and use. | 👎 High running costs. |
| 👍 Smaller than its predecessor. | |
| 👍 Multiple filters and templates. |
DNP Event Photo Printer DS-RX1HS
If you are looking for the best printers for photo booth in heavy application mode DS-RX1HS is your best choice. It’s a heavy-duty thermal-dye photo printer which produces high-quality pictures in seconds. The unit is specifically designed for photo booth application. 30 pounds only weight makes it pretty much portable. It can print sizes of 2″x6″, 4″x6″, 5″x7″ and 6″x8″ which provides a lot of variety of sizes. You will be amazed to know that it consumes 25% less power in peak, idle and running mode.
It can print both on glossy and matte surfaces. When you talk about resolutions the printed images rage between 300×300 dpi to 600×600 dpi. Whether you are setting up a self-service photo kiosk or a professional photo booth, this beast fulfills all your need. The design is very simple and aimed mainly for functions. There is only one button which controls power. The only medium of connectivity is a USB 2.0 port located next to the power button. In the front, there are four lights, marked as Power, Ribbon, Paper, and Error.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 👍 Low price for its ilk. | 👎 None. |
| 👍 Good print quality. | |
| 👍 Fast Processing. |
Best printers for photo booth Buyer’s Guide
Setting up a photo booth requires multiple things like lights, camera, background, props, and printer. We will discuss the most essential one the printer.
How we chose the best printers for photo booth
There are multiple factors which affect your selection of printers when you are especially shopping for the photo booth.
Budget
No matter what you are buying budget is always an important factor which affects your choices. When it comes to photo printers it’s not only the price of the printer you have to worry about. You also have to calculate other running costs like the cost of the paper, the cost of the ink, etc. The calculation of running cost is important because this is where your profit lives.
Size
Size of the printer is directly related to portability. When you are choosing a printer for the photo booth, you want it to be portable. There are multiple options when it comes to sizes. You have pocket printers, printers which are small enough to be carried in a bag, or a big printer. The size of the printer is also related to the number of uses. If you are looking for heavy uses you must go with big printers.
Connectivity
Connectivity is another factor which must be considered while choosing the best printers for photo booth. There are multiple options like wifi, USB, ethernet, etc available. More connectivity is better if you want to give more options to customers to operate themselves. If you are the one managing everything connectivity is not a problem at all.
Speed
As any printer speed is as important as quality in photo booth printers as well. No one wants to wait for minutes just to print one picture. The average range of speed for a photo booth printer would be between 10 to 50 seconds. If it takes more than a minute don’t go for it. In times it will become frustrating to operate on such printers.
Conclusion
These are some of the best printers for photo booth with their pros and cons. You need to explore gives choices based on your requirement and budget. With the buyer’s guide explaining different factors, we are sure you will make a perfect choice. If you are looking for more printing options you can have a look at our best printers for printing checks and best printers for saving ink as well.
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