I just registered today so I could post. I tried to just look at the posts to get answers but found the information was so out of date! The Topic titled 'Latest News' (something like that) was dated from 2008. Obviously it didn't tell us about the latest versions of PhotoFiltre.
As I see it there are a few reasons for the forum not being used.
- A great program with few glitches. True.
The people who need it can't read French.
People are more safety conscious and don't want to use a forum that uses a non-secure connection for names, emails and passwords when registering.
Not enough people know about /
PF is a great little program. It is great for seniors, new artists, and those on low income because it doesn't have a steep learning curve, is easy to use and is a powerful often overlooked program. And it is affordable. You can duplicate the picture in a blink of an eye. And the 3d paint is lovely to play with. The icons are easy to see and use. It can successfully use both my Mehdi and Redfield 8bf plugins. And the paid version has layers! It's a stable program with few glitches. It really does rival Adobe's Photoshop Elements (PSE). I installed those same plugins into PSE 2021 and all it gave me was error messages.
I sometimes find it difficult to navigate through the PF website simply due to language (I don't know French) differences. I am including a poll which will give you information about what languages people do speak that use the forum. And perhaps something about this could be used in the payment section when the Pro version is purchased.
Without Google Translate I would not know what is said on the forum. Unfortunately I haven't been able to be signed in and use Google Translation of the Forum at the same time. So I have my Google Translate Forum pages open in one tab and am signed in on another tab. Sadly I can't find the forum pages I want when I'm signed in.
If I didn't know how to use Google Translate of a website I wouldn't have joined the forum today. And many do not have those kind of tech skills (unless they were born in the last 30ish years they likely don't). This is an affordable program that might be used by seniors who can afford it, but don't have the computer skills needed to register or use a forum. Many of my friends have trouble using email.
I have done a lot of online research looking for alternatives to Photoshop and other Graphic programs. And I haven't seen the name of PhotoFiltre come up very often at all. And when it does it is on sites whose information is out of date talking about out of date software. This could be due to its affordable price which is what drew me to it in the first place. And probably due to a lack of marketing. I simply can't afford apps over the $50 CAD mark.
You might consider developing PhotoFiltre so it could be used on cell phones. That wouldn't work for me, but most people do use their cell phones and many don't have a second device so making it work on a cell phone or tablet would increase the number of users both of the app and of the forum. I love Windows. I love a Mac. But about 75% of the people I know are iPad, iPhone and Mac people so that is another market you could have if you wanted to.
Maybe some kind of marketing of the product would result in more people using it and therefore more people using the forums.
Do you think changing the security of the registration page would result in less spam? I had a website with open commenting and had to restrict it due to the extreme amount of spammers. My Password Manager Last Pass won't sign me in because of the unsecured connection on the login page.
Here is Google Translate
https://translate.google.ca/