I'm curious about any methods other members have used to organize art assets, at least at the high level (i.e., before committing to dedicated asset management software packages). For example, let's say I'm organizing textures, concept art scans, etc. So far I'm just using folder trees (with actual assets in thumbnail view), but I'm thinking that something like a database or HTML-based structure would be much more efficient for the artists to navigate. I've tinkered with setting up thumbnail pages in photoshop, but links to the full photos are still highly compressed (I'm not too photoshop savvy). Thanks in advance for any ideas or counsel. :)

What you are talking about reminds me of a free application that google makes called picasa. It may not have all the features you need but you might as well give it a look.