Lab

Photo paper

Whether you own the most expensive inkjet printer ever made, or a modestly priced model, the quality of prints will vary depending on the type of paper you feed into it. Manufacturers claim that you should only use their papers with their printers in order to achieve the best results, but there are plenty of cheaper alternatives.

In this Labs test, we've gathered 19 glossy photo papers and printed photos on them using 13 different inkjet printers, ranging from budget home models through to professional and A3 models. We didn't simply examine the prints for quality - we also looked to see how fade resistant each paper was .

We were surprised at just how much the choice of paper affected the quality of images. We could immediately see the difference between a great paper and a poor one. A quality paper brings images to life, giving warm and natural skin tones, vibrant colours and sharp definition. Poor-quality paper leaves colours looking drab, skin tones sickly, and the images generally looking flat and unappealing.

In addition, image quality can change significantly over time. This degradation is caused by exposure to sunlight, humidity, heat and the gasses present in the air. Photos can be completely ruined after a year's exposure, just because of your choice of paper.

Since we've included papers from HP, Canon and Epson, and subjected them to the same rigorous testing, we've been able to put those best-results claims to the test. Read on to find out whether they're true... or not.