It does a good job of actually processing photos, but it is very controlling about where and how you open and archive them. It has bizarre redefinitions of how to view a folder and open a file. Maybe some of that can be fixed with profile settings, haven't bothered yet.

It won't do the bulk RAW processing, but for me, the free Windows Live Photo Gallery has been great for keeping things organized. You can put tags on your photos like flickr, and search through them pretty quickly: I have about 76,000 photos and it takes about 10 seconds to get search results. If you install a plug-in corresponding to your camera, Gallery can display RAW files directly. And if you're using a mac, never mind!

I tried out Lightroom, and I just didn't get it. I love the idea of tagging photos, but somehow when it came down to it, it didn't work, and I didn't get into processing with it either.

Picasa is free, and I like browsing it. If it had tagability it would be perfect. It does do good with search if you know what you call shit. What I do now with my photographs is give each new day's photographs a new folder with the date they were taken unless there's a specific event like a vacation or wedding or something, then they get the event's name. Being non professional I pretty much look at my photos from the standpoint of what catches my interest. So, I like scrolling through thumbnails of my photos. I don't have near 76,000, so take it with a grain of salt. I'm also not a very good photographer, and quite the hobbiest.

I'll have to see what that Windows Live Photo Gallery is about.

oh, as an aside, I keep film in separate folders than the digital crap. It's always good to keep your crap in nice piles. Digital crap. Film crap. Black and white crap. Color crap. etc.