gPhoto is a program and library framework that lets users download pictures from their digital cameras. The libgphoto2 library gives you access to hundreds of models of digital cameras on several platforms.
GIT repo and Issue tracker lives at https://github.com/gphoto/ these days.
Developer's Image Library (DevIL) is a cross-platform image library utilizing a simple syntax to load, save, convert, manipulate, filter and display a variety of images with ease.