I'm the origional designer.
I've just seen this now otherwise I would have answered sooner.
I don't have any problem with you or your partner having a play with the image and posting it up, that's what this forum is all about, having some fun! I also appreciate that you mentioned the image is not yours and you'd pass anyone wanting artwork on to me but please don't bring into question my ability to copyright my own work.
Copyright is quite simple to define; All artwork by anyone is subject to copyright unless otherwise specified.
It does not matter if there is a water mark present or not, if it did galleries up and down the land would be spray painting a big copyright logo over fine art paintings incase someone takes a photo.
I wrote 'sample' across the art work, not to obliterate the work, to suggest to people who might not be copyright savvy that it is a sample, whether you believe this to be good enough is irrelevant, in a similar vein it is like telling the music industry they shouldn't make CD's so easy to copy and it is their fault whole albums were given away free on torrents.
I don't want to preach to you, but I wanted to clear that up. Encourage your girlfriend to keep up the good work and post some more of her stuff on CS!
Here's some more of my work, (incase there is any confusion they are Copyright C Rjones.) I've worked in the games industry and for publishers of all types over the years, if anyone would like any advice on anything art related I'd be happy to share my views.
BTW if anyone wants a descent photoshop of their car just let me know by PM.
I understand that....but I am not making any personal gain from this, just an Avatar.!
If it is his business, then perhaps he should look at how he posts his images online in the future, perhaps lower the res or like I said a stronger watermark.
If it offends I can and will remove it for you.
something like this perhaps.