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The most compact model of our group, this two-pound, 10-ounce dye-sub printer also offers one of the best tool sets for adjusting and printing photos. Its 300dpi 4x6 glossy prints can be made either from a PictBridge-compatible digital camera (via USB) or from a memory card. An optional Bluetooth adapter allows wireless printing from a variety of devices, including camera cellphones. A built-in carrying handle makes it a true take-anywhere device.

Clicking through your pictures on the FP90's unusually large 3.6-inch tilt-up LCD is quick, even with big files. The printer's Auto Touch-up feature uses face-recognition technology to optimize exposure for skin tones, remove redeye, and even sharpen out-of-focus faces. Unlike typical snapshot models, it actually allows you to make Photoshop-style manual adjustments to its red, green, and blue color channels. You can also adjust sharpness and other image parameters. Prints can be made with or without borders, and in ID Photo mode you can vary the size of the image between two and six centimeters for specific purposes. Index prints can contain as many as 16 images per 4x6 sheet, and you can also make calendar pages with a featured photograph.

You can put the date on your prints, of course, but the FP90 also lets you add handwritten messages or graphics: Shoot a picture of something you've written or a graphic element, shoot your main subject, load both pictures, and the printer combines them, dropping out the background of the written message so that the writing appears superimposed on the other image. Other special effects that you can create with the printer include converting color images to black and white, sepia, or "partial" color (in which it usually seems to keep color in faces and figures, desaturating everything else); adding fisheye distortion and a painted effect; and a variable cross filter, which creates rays that radiate from highlights. Once you've applied an effect you can save a copy of the altered image file to your memory card right in the printer, so the original is left intact and you can print it the exact same way later on.

The FP90's default settings produce warm, vibrant prints with smooth tones and ample detail. The time it took to print a 4x6 from a memory card actually came in a couple of seconds under Sony's minimum advertised time of 45 seconds, which is very fast for the category.

The downsides? Close inspection of our test prints revealed that very dark shadow areas were blocked up, although from a normal viewing distance this simply gives images a slightly contrasty look. The small size of the printer also makes it necessary to use a detachable paper tray that must be carried separately, and because there's no battery option for the FP90 it must be plugged in to AC current for operation. About $200; about 29 cents per print.

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