My dad and I were thinking of getting my mother an iPad. She spends hours at the computer (an iMac) uploading hundreds of photos to iPhoto, editing them, and uploading them to shutterfly. Most people would probably agree, but sitting at the computer working on the photos is uncomfortable and painful for her ailing back.

We thought that something more portable (and more affordable than a new macbook) could be a nice way to take the photo work away from the desk. Is this a viable option? Does anyone use their iPad to do those things?

It doesn't seem like it is set up for that to me. Hundreds of photos take up a lot of space and they would need to be backed up. Eventually you would have to delete them from the iPad to make room for the new crop of photos.

I think it would be too complicated right now with the software that's available (apple needs an iPad version of iPhoto that syncs with iPhoto just like itunes does for other media, and I'm sure they'll do it soon). It may make more sense to just put that money toward a Macbook instead.

with the apple ipad camera kit you can download the photos directly to the ipad, which can be transferred to iphoto when you sync the ipad with the computer.

i don't know how viable/easy it is to be doing any real photo editing on the ipad though. I have on occasion used the camera connection kit to clear out the SD card from my camera, and it worked flawlessly every time.

There are a couple of supposedly good image editing apps out there. I downloaded the photoshop one (which was free), but didn't get to use it yet.

I think the awkward thing about photos is, that they have to be on the ipad. To have them there, you must sync them from your PC/Mac. So you have them stored twice.
So far the camera connection kit doesn't support the pictures being manipulated and leaving them stored on a SD card. It can only be used to import pictures to the iPad from a camera or memory card. This makes this option a no go for me as I'm organising and storing my pictures on my PCs external hard-drive.

But most of the camera apps get really good reviews, so I would consider them for working on my pictures.

As you say storage will be a problem but I'm surprised by how many the pad can hold. Spent a week in Venice recently snapping like mad and every night I copied them from the camera to review the take. Plenty of room left.

She'll want to keep some of the best to show off, but the rest can be synced to the iMac.
As to apps there are some very good ones available, such as Filterstorm, Photogene, Photo FX and Retouch. As a long time photoshop user I'm surprised by how good they are and how easy touch control can be.