Nords said:
Once you've scanned them and touched them up, what's the next step?
How robust is the labeling & indexing system? For example, does the software let you create a photo DVD that can be searched for names or dates to display all the fourth-grade photos of your older brother? Or should all the photos stay on a hard drive that can be organized, searched & sorted with something like Picasa?
Only 18 months left until my in-laws' 50th wedding anniversary... during their pending Mainland move we'd have a great opportunity to surreptitiously scan all their 35mm slides and give them some sort of display hardware...
What started as a project to put everything (photos/slide/negatives, videos and important documents) onto a collection of DVD's was not as simple as I originally envisioned. In short, Photoshop Elements has a cataloging feature that I have not fully explored. Some of that was because I started with the oldest photos and those needed the most work. Which, when I started, I decided was actually a good opportunity to learn all of the capabilities of the equipment and programs. But, the learning curve has humbled me a little, and I also got sidetracked learning the video editing program to make DVD movies.
All that to say "I don't know for sure". But Elements has the ability to add tags to photos so you can find them by keyword searches, and it also has the ability to have "collections". My brief look at the cataloging features made me say "looks pretty powerful" and "I need to learn the other features before I start doing this." I'll have to get back to you on the details of how well it works just as soon as I figure it out.
Here are guides & tutorials on the catalogue feature:
http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/ideagallery/
As to how to store - DVD or hard drive - I think that's best answered by how much space you need. External hard drives are cheap now and you can load everything on to one of those and have something the size of a large paperback book. For my purposes I am doing both, DVD's go to the safety deposit box while the external HD can be ready to go in seconds and will easily fit into my "get out of Dodge" bag.
Digital displays are probably the weakest element in the chain. I researched digital picture frames a couple of years ago when I bought one for my wife at Christmas. This past Christmas I killed a little time at Fry's and it seemed that was still the case. You can buy something okay for a reasonable price, or you can get something just a little better for a lot more money. The best display is on a PC with a decent computer monitor, but all the stand alones have to make compromises. You can find the same one I bought at Amazon by searching for ZIGA. It takes CF, SD, Sony, etc memory cards/sticks and does a good job of displaying photos in many formats and will do MP3 sound in the background as well as videos. You do have to reduce resolutions down if you want to make optimum use of the memory card. I really like this device and it's quite reasonable. The only drawback is that the viewing angle is somewhat limited. The more centered you are to the display the better the picture, and looking at is straight on I think the display is great.
If I get the right read from your past posts about the in-laws, their reaction will probably be about the same as what I got from my wife. "Oh, I love this. Wait, why did you pick that photo? Oh, I don't look good in that one, take it off please. I just love the frame, but you need help in picture selecting."