Ask How do you protect your freelancing work from being used before payment is received?

[Brendan]

A lot of freelancers have been burned by this, and it is one of those things you only learn the hard way. You deliver the work, the client goes quiet, and you are left with nothing to show for your effort. Some people use watermarks, some send low-resolution previews, and others hold back the final file until payment clears. But not every type of work makes it easy to do that. How do you personally protect your work before a client pays?