I have been told in the past that 150dpi is the minimum, else text will start to suffer and maybe even at 150. That being said, I am happy to add in text myself and I won't need help with that which also removes licensing issues.

Having thought about it some more, I would like some room for edits for things like vegetation and rivers in the longer term, and potentially also for terrain if I decide an important hill is here, or a lake over there.

I will have a think about what you've said, Tiana. My biggest frustration has been that, as I've drawn finer details, I have a Wacom One tablet (not the display version) and I can't seem to translate angles onto the screen as I want them, and all my mountains end up with a weird upwards flick (hence my use of a brush tool which just stamped them all in, which I resorted to after many hours of going 'nah, I don't like that' to my freehand work). I also just don't know how to convey "this area is a wetlands" in a way that I also find aesthetically pleasing - see my current hodgepodge of a wetlands which I made by rendering some clouds and difference clouds and then ramming a Levels adjustment layer up to make it a bunch of random squiggles.

My thinking with paying someone was that whilst I believe I could learn to do this better, and I already know my way around Photoshop reasonably well enough to get somewhere eventually.. I value my time. Just as I value the time and amazing work of the artists here who will be happy for me to pay them (I hope!) to do it better than I would do. If I charge myself the same rate I do in my own creative commissions, it's more expensive for me to make my own map (though it's offset, of course, by also being """paid""" for that time by myself - and developing a skill).

Thank you for everybody who has commented or messaged me. At the moment I am still happy to look at portfolios and consider work, but... Yeah, you amazing people have given me bits to chew on (and I'm now eyeing up the Wacom One Display tablet... My partner shall be thrilled).