Photo Software - what would you like here?

I have a contrary position on this subject. I think a single category for post processing is sufficient. Many of us use multiple software apps in our post processing workflow. It seems to me that post processing discussions are about what we want to achieve and how to do so, instead of discussions of specific apps.

That would be good for beginners like me.

Also perhaps include a forum for free software which could include RawTherapee, Darktable etc.

Probably a question of how much there is discussion that relate to specific software. I don't like the idea of making endless amount of subforums for the variety of software photographers use.

Then again, this forum has already split Canon R cameras to so many categories that I really doubt it's benefit for a user of the R system.

For me there is a point when variety of discussion is too much in one forum (this I find problematic with FM forum) and when variety of forums covering similar topics is too much (this was a problem in Dpreview and seems to grow higher here). I think splitting when necessary is better than spreading users all over :-).

I think this is a reasonable starting point. Could I add a suggestion for plug-ins particularly those that are in collections e.g. the Nik collection.

I think the granularity should be driven by traffic / number of post.
Once a category reach a certain level, it'd deserve a subfolder.
You can use DPReview forums traffic as a guidance for this.

Please remember VIDEO as well which is probably 50% of the reason people are buying cameras these days.

The "Retouching" label was a bad one IMO. Photo Editing would be a better label.

... by moving up 1 level with a single click... - how? Thx.

My two cents: I use more than 10 PP programs myself but caution you against overly fragmenting this forum. Splitting Adobe stuff into PS vs. LR vs. PSE leaves out ACR, Bridge and Firefly, and I bet there will be more over time. Similar splits would need be made for DxO (PhotoLab vs. PureRAW vs Nik), Luminar (4 vs Neo), etc. Where does that stop? There are so many editors out there that you'd need 30-50 forums to do all of them justice. The more forums you have, the less frequented each will be, with the consequence that some tend to die the proverbial "slow, horrible death".

Trying to use other categorizations IMO only makes matters worse. Is Lightroom a DAM, an image editor, or something else? Where do Topaz' plugins or image viewers such as FastStone or XnViewMP belong? Where does something like Excire Photo, an AI-automated keyword generator, fit? And so on and so forth. The PP landscape is not as clear-cut as such categories would require, and newer AI-based programs keep cluttering it further.

Post Processing is a good title. (I would drop "comparisons", as some discussions will be specific only to one program.) Within that, maybe address the major makes (Adobe, DxO, Capture One; not sure any others warrant a dedicated forum). Lump the others into categories wherever you can (such as "Other Commercial PP Software", "Free / Open-Source PP Software"), and make sure to offer a forum that facilitates generic discussions, where questions such as "Which PP software is best for me?" can be discussed freely.

Yes, when we talk about improving an image, and only about that ;)

While I am against too much fragmentation because it can end requiring a frustrating number of clicks to read everything, but one thing you could do is add an “All” group for each sub-forum.

You can move up one level with the breadcrumbs.

Interesting... so the max-depth of the sub-forum tree (in the misago sw) is what, 3?

Correct

Wouldn't there be just too many sub-forums if we started listing every software system out there? There are other plug-in collections besides Nik. Topaz is another. On1 has started selling its plug-ins separately from the standalone software. I don't think oem software has been mentioned. Would discussion of those be restricted to the camera forums? And even software packaged with computers like Photos has editing functionality. We also have software apps for smart phones. There are categories of software as well: raw conversion, sharpening, noise reduction, black and white conversion, AI, analogue, HDR, etc. How do we deal with that? Do we have sub forums for all the uses of software? It's a good discussion.

Yes. So only do so for the “majors” like LR, C1, PS, etc & then aggregate the others. I think Alan suggested same.