My grandfather has many albums worth of old family photos he wants to scan in. His goal is to get all the pictures in, then start dividing up digital copies based on which family branches would be interested in which. (His sister's kids wouldn't be interested in photos of his wife's parents, for instance.)
To this end, he purchased a Neat scanner (possibly a NeatDesk), but is pretty unhappy with the included software. I'm trying to find something that he can replace it with.
Primary Requirements
- Windows 7 compatible.
- The software should be able to receive scanned pictures directly from the scanner. (If you know that Neat scanners are incompatible with non-Neat software, let me know!)
- The software should be able to organize pictures in, at a minimum, a hierarchical folder structure. Ideally, it would additionally support tags/aliases and the ability to place a photo in multiple locations.
- The ability to export a photo or group of photos, either to a folder or (preferably) burn to a CD/DVD.
- The photos must be able to be stored on a drive which isn't
C:\. Whether this means installing the software on the other drive (as Neat does), or whether you can specify a location (as any sane software should do), is irrelevant so long as photos will automatically go to that drive.
Optional Requirements
- My grandfather is computer semi-literate. I can explain things to him as needed, but I don't live nearby, so the easier it is to use, the better.
- Ideally, it would be free software. If not, it should at least provide a free trial he can try out for a week or two before he decides to purchase. If the purchase price is over $100, that is a mark against, but not a disqualifier.
- If it has cloud support that's straightforward to use, that would be a plus.
- If it provides any way to help categorize photos (such as facial recognition or suggested tags), that could be a plus if it's easy to use.
- If it can accept multiple photos scanned in at once, and separate them out, that would be a large timesaver.
- If it can double as a receipt/document scan-organizer, that would also be a plus.
- Photo editing features are not a requirement, and may not even be a benefit to have, but it's worth noting whether or not the software has them.
I know that iPhoto on a Mac would handle most, if not all, of these requirements. But moving my grandfather to a Mac would not be an easy process. Parallels/VMware could help (it's what I use), but adds an additional layer of complexity and context-switching.
Any suggestions?
