My wife is not an advanced user of computers by any stretch of the imagination, but I would never buy an iPad for her.
She has a DSLR and 60k photos in iPhoto (~320G). iPads will eventually store this much in 3 years, but you will want it backed up somewhere (and in 3 years the "cloud" still won't be doing this much (personal) data at a reasonable personal cost compared to a physical device). And she will not be tolerant of doing edits or looking at photos on a 10" screen.
Not to mention that once you increase the screen size, portability goes out the window -- you will have a monitor. And guess what? Touch input doesn't really work ergonomically on a 24" monitor.
There are solutions, Airplay will obviously be involved, as will BT input devices. But it's not quite ready for prime-time yet.
Everyone's case is different of course, but it's very possible that soon, your wife will be on iPad only.
For large monitors, AirPlay to the TV works great today. I can snap a picture on my iPhone, step inside my house and the next second, show the picture on a 50" TV to all my guests. Instantaneous. I don't have to connect to a computer at all. It even works for videos.
Combine that with a card from Eye-Fi and cloud storage, and I'd say that in two years tops, you'll feel like it's a completely normal and safe way to manipulate your pictures. Use the iPad to arrange them in collections. Show them on the TV. Store them online.
The only thing missing there is editing, if you are trying to do something beyond adding a few filters you are probably going to want either a mouse or something closer to a proper graphics tablet (which is quite different from a capacitive touchscreen).
My wife is not an advanced user of computers by any stretch of the imagination, but I would never buy an iPad for her.
She has a DSLR and 60k photos in iPhoto (~320G). iPads will eventually store this much in 3 years, but you will want it backed up somewhere (and in 3 years the "cloud" still won't be doing this much (personal) data at a reasonable personal cost compared to a physical device). And she will not be tolerant of doing edits or looking at photos on a 10" screen.
Not to mention that once you increase the screen size, portability goes out the window -- you will have a monitor. And guess what? Touch input doesn't really work ergonomically on a 24" monitor.
There are solutions, Airplay will obviously be involved, as will BT input devices. But it's not quite ready for prime-time yet.