However, I’d like to ask if it’s possible to configure different settings based on Joomla article categories. For example:

For the "News" category and all its subcategories, I’d like to use images/news/$year/$month.
For other categories, such as a list of partners or events, I’d prefer images/partners or images/events.

You can do this with a Custom Query in Editor Profiles.

1. Create a new profile for each of your distinct path values, by making a copy of the Default profile.
2. In the Setup tab, add a unique name for the profile, and set the Ordering to "First"
3. In the Setup tab, for the Custom Query option, add catid for the Key and the category id for the Value. Sub-categories are not yet supported (I hope to add this in th enext update), so you will need to create a new Custom Query for each sub-category too. You can also use negated values for the catid, eg: !8 will apply to all catid values that are not 8, eg:
   
   
4. Set the File Directory Path for each new profile, eg: images/news/$year/$month
5. Save the Profile.

For uncategorized articles, I’d use just images.

This can be the "Default" profile without any Custom Query option set, with the File Directory Path blank or set to "images".