I recommend CoinTalk to friends who join but don't know how to begin a thread. One asked me what to do and here is what I wrote one of them today: Here is what to do: You need a title for the thread, something to say, and images. Prepare the images you want to use. Images saved from the original dealer are likely to be fine. Photos you personally take probably need to have their size reduced. They should be cropped to just show the coin (Don't show lots of empty space around a tiny image of a coin in the middle) and the file size should be maybe 50-200 kb or so. Larger will work, but avoid 500k or 1 m files which are larger than necessary. A point-and-shoot camera photo with image-size 3 mb is far too large. Compress such images to fewer bytes. Make it maybe 800-1500 pixels wide to show both sides of a coin, but not 4000. (On my Mac I do this with "Preview" and "Tools" and "Adjust size" then "Export" as "jpg".) Once you have the photos ready, go to CoinTalk. I will illustrate this with using the "ancients" forum. Go to CoinTalk's ancients forum: https://www.cointalk.com/forums/ancients/ On the main page you see this: Click on "Post new thread". It comes up like this: Fill in the thread title. (Just leave it with "(No prefix)".) Upload the images you want to use by clicking on "Upload a file" and selecting them. You can insert them where you want in the post later. Uploading them makes them ready to go. This can be done before or after typing in the text, whichever you prefer. Type what you want to say. You can, if you wish, type it elsewhere first and block and copy it and paste it into CoinTalk. To insert a photo click on the spot where you want it. Then insert it there by selecting "Full Image" from the "Attached Files" below the window: (This screenshot has only one photo uploaded--it could have up to ten.) Click on "Full Image" to insert the image where you last clicked in the text. You can do that with up to ten images (if you want 11 images, it takes two posts.) If you upload an image you decide you don't want to use, you may "Delete" it. Reread the post to make sure it is the way you want it. When you are ready, click "Create Thread". It will then become the first post on the forum page. Look at it again, now that it is up. Reread it. You have about an hour to "Edit" it if you find something you want to change. After it has been posted, people can add to the thread and their window looks like this: Just above that "Write your reply" window you can see the tiny "Valentinian, 3 minutes ago Edit Report" It would have (instead of "Valentinian, 3 minutes ago") your username and how long ago you originally posted it. To change something, click on "Edit" and change it and then "Save changes." For beginners the "Edit" option only lasts an hour; after that it is no longer available. The tiny "Report" feature allows you to report to moderators inappropriate posts (so they can be removed) or to recommend posts be "featured" as especially good. I hope this helps new CoinTalk members be able to start a new thread.
Here I am, telling you how to post threads and I can't seem to fix my own! I can't get rid of the (missing image) symbol. It has the four images I intended. Oh well!
When adding pics, I prefer to snip the pic with Snipping tool and just Ctrl+V in the post. For me this is easier as I keep a personal catalogue composed from Word documents corresponding to every auction I participate in - and add pics of the won coin and the description. When posting it, I just paste the capture from Snipping tool.
IMO Valentinian left out one point: You need to try it on something simple and learn how before you come up with something that is important to you. Don't make a mega-thread or something that duplicates a post seen this week but you will get a lot more out of CT by being a participant than a lurker. The same goes for coin photography. Practice.
Well, I learned something new there myself! As a CT newbie, I didn't even realize you could cut-and-paste photos, so I've just been using the "Upload a File" method. It's great that more people are wanting to create threads, but I'd suggest maybe first posting a couple of replies to other people's threads first, just to get the hang of it, if you are at all unsure... Just click the "Reply" button under someone's message, type your reply, add photos if you like, then click "Post Reply". If you change your mind half way through, and don't want to post it, or just want to practice creating a reply, then just click the "back" button on your browser rather than clicking on "Post Reply". You'll see what any photos look like - reasonable size or not - as you add them to your reply, before you commit to posting them with "Post Reply".
I used to copy and paste photos, and then there was a glitch in CT, and for while the photos would show up while you were writing the post but disappear when you actually posted the comment or thread. So I switched to saving the photo as a temporary file on my desktop and uploading it. Apparently this glitch has been corrected and you can copy and paste photos again. That's good to know.
