Just a random thought for the morning.
Watermarks used to be the way to go, to stop people from just taking your images and using them however they want. They’re also used to send sample images and then ask for payment.
With AI advancing, it’s very likely going to get easier for the layperson to click a button and have AI remove your watermark.
How do you plan to safeguard against this?
Everyone is saying not to bother watermarking. And nobody who does is any good does it. As a counter example here is a highly successful photographer whose work is fantastic that uses obnoxiously large watermarks: https://cherylwalsh.art/
You can see by her subject matter, her work might be one that is frequently stolen by people who don’t want to pay for prints. Much more so than the average photog selling prints.
The watermark is big enough that it would not be easy to remove by an average person even as tools to do so improve.