[sane-devel] What exactly does scanning software do?

[Chris]

Hi group,

Can anyone tell me whether any of the colour (and other) adjustments 
that I make in XSane affect the actual (hardware) output of my scanner, 
or are all these adjustments simply applied in software after the raw 
scan has been sent to XSane?  In other words, do these adjustments 
actually alter what the hardware does?

The reason I ask is that, when scanning, I usually make a number of 
adjustments in my scanning software and then make some more adjustments 
in my editor (Gimp/Photoshop etc) after acquiring the scan.  But if the 
initial adjustments are only done in software, wouldn't it make more 
sense to simply take a raw scan with default settings and do all the 
adjustments in Gimp only?  In terms of workflow, it would make sense to 
only be doing one set of adjustments.

Cheers,
Chris