Find the quality level you like and then base your purchase on the cost of the ink cartridges.

Over the lifetime of a printer the ink will cost far more than the purchase price of the printer.

I use a budget printer… an Epson Stylus Color 480. Ink is very cheap for this model (and is made by a third party ink maker) and the quality is good enough for my purposes (mostly letters with the odd picture or photo).

The fact that you want the printer for images, or specifically photos means you probably want to spend a little more.

Past a certain level it is hard to tell the difference with just numbers… take an image into the shop and ask to print out the image with the different printer models that you have narrowed yourself down to (they won’t be impressed if you want to try them all…).

Glossy photo paper makes a significant difference to image quality, but remember to tell the printer you are using photo paper.