Just a follow-up: after tomos kindly posted a link to Ashampoo's new Batch Image Optimizer in this
thread, I was spurred to action and actively sought an alternative to Paperport's wonderful image editing tools. I found that using a combination of Vicman's
Photo Toolkit and
Photo Editor provides the functionality that I seek. These are both now free. I went with an alternative, however:
PhotoFiltre, which is available in both free and shareware versions. I love this app - it would be perfect if it had an easier to use straighten tool. I liked it enough to spring for the Studio version (25 Euros) and will be requesting modifications to the straighten tool. Why did I go with shareware? I want the tools in one package, not spread over two, and I wanted to support development of PhotoFiltre. PhotoFiltre has a much better GUI (IMHO) than the Vicman offerings as well. I'll probably be uninstalling PaintShopPro (v.9,X, and XI) soon, PhotoFiltre is that good and so much more stable, less resource hungry, and, most importantly, QUICK.
I'm still waiting to hear from Nuance about my request that they release Paperport's tools as a standalone app. My gut tells me that they won't be rushing to make it happen though...