Whether you're a casual photographer or a pro, one of the photo printers we recommend is sure to fit your needs. Whichever you choose, you're guaranteed to hold evidence of that great moment in your hand almost as soon as you capture it with a click. We've listed our favorite near-dedicated photo printers and snapshot models, as well as a few inkjet all-in-ones that do an especially good job with photos but can also serve general printing needs in a home or small office.

For a wider view of printers, check out our guide to our favorite printers overall. And for photo hounds getting started in the photo-printing world, see our guide to fixing bad photos and our collection of advanced photo tips.

As we said, many inkjet-based home and office all-in-one printers do print excellent photos, and even some color laser printers do a decent job with photographic images for flyers or brochures. But they're more general-use printers than the two kinds we focus on here.

Near-dedicated photo printers and snapshot models are both made for printing photos, but that's where the similarities end between the two. By definition, near-dedicated photo printers are also capable of printing ordinary business documents. Still, it's a waste of their talents, like using a Lamborghini for a trip to the supermarket. You'll have to swap out paper stock or even ink cartridges when you switch from printing photos to everyday documents, only to get results that an office inkjet or laser printer could give you for a fraction of the cost.

Snapshot printers are a whole different animal. At one time, these printers often had LCD screens with menus and basic editing features that let you crop an image, remove red-eye, and so on; a few were practically home photo kiosks with touch-screen controls. Nowadays, however, snapshot printers tend to work with mobile devices like smartphones (most people's cameras of choice) over a wireless connection, with your phone or tablet serving as both the image source and the control screen. If you're primarily interested in printing quick, small snaps from your phone, these are more your speed.

Some snapshot printers can print from a computer over a USB connection, but most are meant as standalone devices for use with phones or tablets. Older models tend to come with Wi-Fi connectivity, and many can print directly from PictBridge-supporting cameras and memory cards or USB flash drives. (Make sure the printer is compatible with the memory card format you want to use.) A few print from internal memory, but you need to transfer files to the memory first, so find what connection you need to use to transfer images. Bluetooth connectivity is most common with today's "smartphone companion"-type printers.

Connectivity options for near-dedicated photo printers are much the same as for standard office models. Some offer a single USB connector; others add an Ethernet jack for easy sharing on an office network. Most now offer Wi-Fi connectivity, and a few offer all three (USB, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi). Few models at this level offer PictBridge connectors or USB flash drive ports or SD card slots, because the assumption is that serious photographers will want to tweak their images before printing from photo-editing programs on their PCs or Macs.