1. A method for forming images in an image forming system, comprising: obtaining an indication of a user intent-based imaging operation for a document produced by the image forming system; obtaining an input orientation for image receiving media in the image forming system; representing image forming operations and changes in orientation of the image receiving media in the image forming system mathematically; compositing, by a processor, the mathematical representations of the image forming operations and the changes in orientation of the image receiving media in the image forming system that occur upstream of a particular image forming device to render a composite transformation; applying, by the processor, the rendered composite transformation to the obtained user intent-based imaging operation to provide an image transformation for the particular image forming device; forming an output image on the image receiving media with the particular image forming device according to the image transformation; and outputting the image receiving media with the output image formed thereon.