Linux for Designers

After the 0.5.94 prerelease, now Gnome Scan 0.6.0 is available. This release is ready for the upcoming Gnome 2.22:
* Completely redesigned and rewritten
* Modularize all the acquisition pipeline from the scanner to the sink.
* Dynamic pipeline plugins parameter list exposed to the UI
* Based on GEGL for huge sized image handling and much much more
* multi thread anywhere : probing, acquisition and more
* acquisition from images
* automatic per application scan settings saving in GConf
* optionnal automatic color enhancement
* available in 15 languages
* Streamlined GUI for mass acquisition
* extended SANE driver support and workarounds
* Regression: no PDF nor JPEG saving
The GNOME Scan project aims to provide scanning features integrated throughout the Gnome desktop, similar to printing. Gnome Scan is a GUI for Xsane.
If you are using Ubuntu Linux you can grab an DEB archive at Launchpad.

SANE, the API that provides standardized access to a scanner under linux (flatbed-/ hand-held-scanner, video-/ still-cameras etc.), is updated to 1.0.19:
* Support for new scanners (Epson, HP, Ricoh)
* An updated backend for various scanners
* Scanimage detects more chipsets
* Updated translations.
* Documentation updates.
* Bugfixes

A new 1.2 version of SANE is planed too, so SANE 2 will be in far feature. There is an interesting blog post of Gnome Scan, about that plan. Gnome Scan is like XSane or Kooka a frontend to SANE.