xsane can be run as a stand-alone program or through the GIMP image manipulation program. In stand-alone mode, xsane can save an image to a file in a variety of image formats, serve as a frontend to a fax program, or send an image to a printer.
SANE stands for "Scanner Access Now Easy" and is an application programming interface (API) that provides standardized access to any raster image scanner hardware (flatbed scanner, hand-held scanner, video- and still-cameras, frame-grabbers, etc.). The SANE standard is free and its discussion and development are open to everybody. The current source code is written to support several operating systems, including GNU/Linux, OS/2, Win32 and various Unices and is available under the GNU General Public License (commercial applications and backends are welcome, too, however).