This week, I tested a product that marries prints with the digital frame: Hewlett-Packard’s $249 HP Photosmart A826 Home Photo Center.

The A826 is the latest in H-P’s series of compact countertop home snapshot printers, meant to turn out small photos quickly. But it has an unusual form, with a large seven-inch screen that also allows for images to be displayed in slide shows, like a digital picture frame. This touch-screen also lets users edit shots using a finger or stylus. Pressing one button prints the image in about a minute and a half.

HP Photosmart A826 Home Photo Center

This new model, due in stores this weekend, is meant to work as a home photo kiosk, so it’s a bit bigger than H-P’s compact photo printers, which have built-in handles for portability and take up less space. The A826 is also pricier than these smaller printers — $70 more than the newest model.

I liked the idea behind this photo printer, editing station and digital frame. Its large screen, 5.6 inches of which are used for the photos, was a welcome change to most photo printers with preview screens that can’t be seen without squinting. But I was disappointed by some of the A826’s features. The newly added ability to draw on images, for example, yielded results that looked fine on-screen but printed out looking like scribble. Removing red eye didn’t seem to improve images on the screen; only when printed did these shots appear red-eye free. And the touch-screen wasn’t as sensitive as I would’ve liked, requiring a few tries to get some buttons to respond.

I couldn’t help but compare the A826 with standalone digital frames. Unlike almost all such frames, the A826 lacks internal storage meaning that in order to keep a slide show going, a memory card, USB drive or camera would need to be plugged into the device. Some digital frames also come with built-in wireless networking to pull images from the Web; the A826 doesn’t have this capability.

This device is hard to miss. Its rounded edges are covered in a stylish white plastic, and the screen is surrounded by black and a pretty shade of pale blue, making it look like a prop from the Jetsons cartoon. It measures roughly the same width as H-P’s compact photo printers, but stands more than twice as tall with the screen at the top so users don’t have to bend as far down to see images. Photo paper measuring 4 by 6 or 5 by 7 inches feeds into the back of the printer in a neat, enclosed compartment that holds up to 100 sheets.

A tiny speaker on the front side of the A826 emits cutesy chimes whenever the device powers on or finishes printing a photo, which I liked. It also uses its large screen for illustrating how to perform tasks like loading paper or inserting a print cartridge.

I got started using the HP Photosmart A826 for its digital frame capabilities, inserting my digital camera’s SecureDigital memory card into a slot below the viewing screen and queuing up about 400 images from my memory card. Images appear on the screen six at a time and in the bottom left corner of each there is a white circle, which can be touched to give it a red checkmark, putting it in the slide-show queue. Tapping the center of any shot magnifies it for editing.

I marked about 30 photos and played them in succession by touching a Slideshow button on the far right edge of the screen. This touchscreen button and others — representing Menu, Back, Print, Scroll Left and Scroll Right — line the left and right black borders of the screen. Only the buttons that make sense to choose at any given time will glow, so users know which ones can be selected and, therefore, can navigate a little easier. For instance, in the Get Creative editing menu, only the Scroll Left, Scroll Right and Back buttons glow.

I folded up a flap that covers the memory-card slots and left my slide show playing for a while on my kitchen counter. It worked like a digital picture frame, for the most part. If the A826 isn’t used for about 10 minutes, it will automatically switch into slide-show mode — a feature I found useful for moments when I didn’t remember that I left it on. This automatic slide show switches over to a black screen after about an hour, though programmed slide shows stay on until turned off.

Touching the screen when an image appears, mid-slide show, will pause the slide show for editing or printing. I used my finger to do simple editing, and most options are offered in large touch-screen buttons, though in more than one instance I had to press buttons with my finger a few times to get them to work. A small white stylus helped, especially for drawing on photos.

I drew cartoon bubbles coming out of people’s mouths and wrote little messages like, “Hey y’all!” bubbling from a Texan friend in a shot from her trip to Europe. These touches can be done in different colors and line thicknesses, and mistakes can easily be erased. They looked good on-screen, but when printed, turned pixilated and detracted from the photo.

I tried some more normal photo editing, such as cropping photos, enhancing a photo’s brightness and removing red eye. The last of these options didn’t work so well in my photos, seeming to leave eyes glowing on the screen. When I printed these shots for the sake of testing, I realized that red eye was actually removed in almost all instances. But this is confusing for users who don’t want to waste ink and paper finding out whether or not the image was corrected.

I found the A826’s most useful photo-enhancing option to be the ability to add captions to shots. These can be entered by using an on-screen keyboard, choosing from five fonts and six colors. The caption can be dragged around the screen to test where it will look best. These typed fonts looked professional and neat, especially compared with my own drawn-on editing.

Printing on the HP Photosmart A826 worked without a problem. It comes with five 5-by-7-inch sheets of paper enough ink for 20 4-by-6-inch prints. Value packs of paper and ink for 120 4-by-6-inch prints cost $35. The printer automatically detects whether it’s loaded with photo paper measuring 5-by-7 or 4-by-6 inches, and prints accordingly. A 5-by-7-inch shot takes a bit longer to print, but looked rather good.

The HP Photosmart A826 seems like it was designed with good intentions, and its large touchscreen is an improvement all on its own. But too many features of this device didn’t work the way they should, from red eyes that didn’t appear fixed on-screen to the touchscreen that didn’t always respond right away. H-P will find an eager audience with this home photo kiosk, but it needs improvement.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email: mossbergsolution@wsj.com

One of the most visually defining features of the digicam is its LCD viewing screen, and camera makers have steadily increased the sizes of these screens; those that once measured about an inch diagonally now measure over three inches. The results are breathtaking: Crisp, bright displays offer a beautiful way to view photos.

Some of these screens are so large that they take over the entire back side of the camera, edging out useful features like optical viewfinders. Buttons, too, are seen as hogging precious real estate on these pocket-size devices. The solution? Replacing regular LCD screens with touch screens that work as viewing screens, viewfinders and buttons rolled into one.

Removing glare from pets’ eyes is possible on the HP Photosmart R937.

This week, I tested two $300 digital cameras from Hewlett-Packard Co. and Pentax Imaging Co. that use large touch screens: the HP Photosmart R937 and the Optio T30. Both took gorgeous photographs, but I focused on how touch screens changed the way I used each camera, and found it took me far less time to become acquainted with functions thanks to the more direct nature of on-screen buttons. For example, left and right arrows that appeared on-screen beside an image could be touched to move from one photo to the next, while a tiny on-screen trash bin icon deleted pics once pressed. In-camera editing was also made simpler with these screens.

But because these camera screens are multifunctional, they must be clearly visible at all times — even in bright light or sunshine — and I found myself squinting to see both screens in the sunlight. In situations like this, an optical viewfinder would at least let you clearly see the subject of photos. On both cameras, the review or playback buttons remained as physical buttons, rather than touch-screen buttons.

The touch technology in these camera screens isn’t as advanced as “multi-touch,” which is used in Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Microsoft Corp.’s Surface Computing. But it is incredibly useful and will change the way you use your digital camera.

While the HP Photosmart R937 turns heads with its giant 3.6-inch screen, this device is too big and heavy to be categorized as a pocket camera. The Pentax Optio T30’s generous three-inch screen is smaller than that of the HP, helping this camera retain the fashionably thin look sought after in the pocket camera category.

The technical specifications of the H-P and Pentax cameras are quite comparable. They offer 8 and 7.1 megapixels, respectively, with 3x optical zoom lenses and digital image stabilization technology to aid shaky hands. Pentax says its Optio T30 will last for 200 shots on a full battery, while H-P claims 190 shots.

A touch-screen menu on the Pentax Optio T30

The $300 (after a $50 rebate) Pentax Optio T30 shipped in April as a follow-up to its two touch-screen predecessors: the Optio T10 (brought out a little over a year ago) and the Optio T20 (last fall).

A series of menus appear when you tap the center of the Optio T30 screen. In capturing mode, for example, a screen tap pulls up four menus: Capture Palette, Flash Mode, Drive Mode and Focus Mode.

The Capture Palette menu displays 16 different icons, one for each mode in which the camera can be set prior to taking a photo. It was a relief to see these large, colorful icons rather than trying to decipher confusing text descriptions or unrelated icons representing each mode. Tapping on an icon brought up a one-line, large-print explanation of it and tapping the on-screen “OK” button set the camera in that mode. Portrait mode, for example, brightens skin tones, while Sport keeps the camera in focus until the shutter is released — ideal for fast-moving subjects.

Most people will likely opt to keep their Optio T30 in default automatic mode, and this requires no touch button adjustments whatsoever. But I was more inclined than usual to switch into different modes using this camera. Knowing that I could tap the screen a couple times to adjust for various situations was a lot more appealing than digging through a list of options in a hidden menu, then finding the right button to select that option.

The Pentax Optio T30’s touch screen also allows for on-screen editing, such as drawing on a photo with an included stylus (my fingernail worked, too). You can also use what Pentax calls “stamps” — little cartoon icons that can be added to a photo. I made my own stamp by drawing an on-screen circle around flowers in one of my photos, copying the flowers and using them as a stamp in other images. This could come in handy if you need to superimpose someone’s head into a photo for which he or she wasn’t present.

The HP Photosmart R937 will ship the first week in August, marking H-P’s foray into the touch-screen digital camera scene. It measures over twice the cubic volume of the Pentax, but strangely, its zoom lens doesn’t protrude when in use — a feature often found in slim fashion cameras that doesn’t make much sense on this bulky model.

The R937’s stunningly large screen makes room for instructional icons that appear around the perimeter of the screen, and each can be tapped for direct access to a menu. For example, a box in the top right of the screen tells you how many megapixels the next photo will capture, and tapping on this box drops you into an image quality screen where you can adjust megapixels. Another on-screen icon for the flash works similarly — one tap and you’re in the correct adjustment menu.

Like the Pentax, the R937 works in default automatic mode without any adjusting. But again, different shooting modes (12 to be exact) were easy to change using touch menus. I found the H-P’s in-camera editing to be the most interesting aspect of this gadget. While reviewing photos, I opened an on-screen Design Gallery menu and found options for removing red eyes, enhancing photos like making the people in my photos look slimmer, and applying any of 13 artistic effects, like turning an image into a cartoon or a kaleidoscope-like view. I tweaked many of my photos using only touch-screen buttons, then saved the edited versions in addition to my old versions.

Time and time again while using both of these cameras, I realized that when commands were right on the screen where I could touch them to select what I wanted to do, the camera’s overall usability was improved and once-buried menus were demystified.

Touch screens and digital cameras make a good pair. I only wish that the screen quality on these cameras was high enough to stand up to bright sunlight. The HP Photosmart R937 is a bit too bulky, though it feels sturdy in your hand and its 3.6-inch screen is a boon. The Pentax Optio T30’s size and simplified touch user interface make it a good buy.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com