im140.6

Hi @RichZep! Thanks again for your reply!
Yes, I'm using a layer mask. I applied a field blur to the entire photo, masked it and using my brush to reveal the blur (in the background trees). So I used a large brush to cover the big areas but when I went to brush around the detailed area, that's where the brush became "hard" and really shows the strokes.
Yep, I think I was trying to do something that can't be done - the way I'm trying to do it. I'm sure there's a better way though and I'll keep looking.
Your explanation and suggestion(s) are excellent and I'm going to give those a try! You've been very helpful and just one more reason I'm glad I invested in Serif instead of the "other" apps.
I hope you have a great day!

It would be best to get your selection accurate before running the macro but you can still go back and refine it afterwards, like so...
1.  Select your topmost layer
2. Select > Reselect (to reenable the selection)
3. Select > Grow / Shrink and shrink the selection by -4px (see below for why)
4. With the selection brush selected you can now click the Refine button to further Refine the selection
5. Once done select New Layer or New Layer with Mask in the Refine Selection dialogue box and click Apply

In the macro before I Inpaint the background I enlarge the selection by 4px to capture any occasional stray edge pixels that may be present from a poorly made initial selection. That is why in step 3 above you have to reduce the selection by 4px to return to the original selection if you want to further refine it. 
But if you prefer you can run (and save) the macro with the Grow / Shrink selection command unticked which will make step 3 above, unnecessary for further refinements.

Hi im140.6,
Welcome to Affinity forum.
I was a bit confused by your explaination and I am also unsure what you are trying to achieve but I hope I have it.
If you set the hardness of a brush at 0% that is the softest and 100% is the hardness. The softer the brush, the further it will 'fade'. So if you want an edge with a sharp defined edge use 100%.
Now to the bit as to why it looks harder when using a small brush. It's to do with the 'feather' or softness as a  percentage of the brush stroke. If you set the hardness to 0% and brush to 2000px you will see the feathered edge but if the brush size is 80px it looks solid.
Hope this makes sense. Sorry if it doesn't

(My apologies if this same procedure has been posted previously.)
Suppose you have two adjustment/filter layers called "SourceLayer" and "DestinationLayer".
Suppose you've created a mask on SourceLayer, so that it affects only part of your image.
Suppose you want DestinationLayer to affect only that same part of your image.
 
1. Select SourceLayer.
2. On the Channels tab, right-click SourceLayer Alpha.
3. Choose Create Spare Channel from the menu.
4. [Optional] Rename "Spare Channel" to "SourceLayer Mask".
5. Select DestinationLayer.
6. On the Channels tab, right-click the icon of SourceLayer Mask.*
7. Choose Load to DestinationLayer Alpha from the menu.
 
DestinationLayer will now affect the same part of your image as SourceLayer.
*If you don't click the icon, you won't see the "Load to..." menu selection. This is a (minor) bug in Affinity Photo.

I'm pretty sure that's just an Edit > Fill > Inpaint command.
 

Try the attached "Blur Background" macro, hopefully no halos
1. Make and refine your selection  (This selection is the object/person you want to remain in focus, i.e. NOT blurred)
2. Run the Macro
3. Adjust the strength of the background blur via the added Live Gaussian Blur filter.
The macro is imported and run via the Macro panel, you can then save it to your Macro library if you want to keep it.
It has been tested and seems to work OK but it has not been intensively tested.
It is added here as a RFC and for others to improve upon if they wish to. 
Or you can just use it to blur all the in-laws out of your wedding photographs
Blur Background (V1).afmacro

Hi @im140.6, after you have made your selection and placed your dog on a new layer, go back to the background layer and using something like the inpainting tool, remove the dog. Now apply the blur to the background. The halo is a result of the blur using pixels from the dog and spilling into the background. Lovely dog by the way 😀
 
 

It is important to distinguish among different kinds of selections. Among them, are:
Having a vector (really, non-pixel) layer selected in the Layers panel. Having a pixel layer selected in the Layers panel. Having a pixel layer selected in the Layers panel, but also having a pixel selection marquee active. For the first two, Cmd/Ctrl+J (Layer > Duplicate Selection) gives you a copy of the layer. So does Layer > Duplicate or right-clicking and selecting Duplicate.
For the third one, Cmd/Ctrl+J gives you a copy of the selected pixels. But Layer > Duplicate or right-clicking and selecting Duplicate give you a copy of the complete layer.

Perhaps because Ctrl+J is not Duplicate. It is Duplicate Selection, as shown by the Layer menu:

We are pleased to announce an update for the Windows release of Affinity Photo, version 1.8.3
Changes in this build
The changes in Affinity Photo for Windows 1.8.3 (over the last release Affinity Photo for Windows 1.8.2) are as follows:
Fixes & Improvements:
Fixed layers getting clipped to embedded documents would not get clipped Fixed Procedural Texture rendering differently to macOS  Further boolean operation improvements  Tweaks to Alignment Fixed misidentification of Sigma 100-400mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary when mounted on a Canon camera Fixed line caps on strokes with pressure profiles that have sharp pressure changes at the start getting incorrectly expanded Fixed PDF export failing due to colour profile being rejected wrongly Fixed rendering artefacts with small radius filter effects Fixed some Pentax lenses being listed as "Pemtax" Fixed crash when switching between Panorama documents Fixed PDF export to honour gradient map's colour space Fixed autosave failing to work Fixed crash opening empty (0Kb) files Fixed PDF export failing with embedded LAB document Fixed PDF export of images to preserve their colour space Fixed PDF export failing when a document contains an empty clip Fixed cropped result when creating a selection from a mask Fixed sporadic selection failure when invert selecting with Move tool Fixed sporadic PSD import crash Fixed floating panels being clipped when collapsed  Help and Localisation improvements. Earlier changes and fixes in 1.8 made since 1.7 (including the new 1.8 features) are listed in some detail in this 1.8.0 update announcement.
 
UPDATING TO THIS VERSION (Free for existing customers)
The software version can be seen on the splash screen and the About dialog (in Help > About Affinity Photo).
If you’ve purchased from the Affinity Store— each time you start the Affinity Store software it will check for updates and offer any available update. The latest update will install over the top of any earlier version, with no need to uninstall. You can download the latest installer by logging into the affinity store here and find the order in your account and use the "Download" button in there. Alternatively, this new release (and previous versions of Affinity Photo for Windows) can be downloaded from this link. (that installer is NOT for Windows Store purchases and needs a product key).
If you’ve purchased from the Microsoft Store— Microsoft Store updates are done automatically by the operating system (each time you start the application). If this does not happen for you, open the Windows Store app and click the three dots in the top right corner of the app and then go to Downloads and Updates. Click Get Updates. This should hopefully force the update to show.

The Hue Shift spectrum/colours is fixed in the macOS version. Only Windows moves it. Still this is unnecessarily confusing [EDIT] in both cases[/EDIT] and is already logged to be looked at.

The attached image show how the HSL adjustment used to be.
The top colour (static) bar represented the original colour and the bottom bar showed what it would change to when you moved the slider.
When they added the rings they removed the static colour bar as the 2 rings showed you the same information but I can't understand why they simply didn't just leave the static colour bar in place as the moving spectrum bar will just confuse new users if they don't know how to first eyeball the colour they want to change and then shift the new colour to that spot.
 

I never mentioned the rings. I was talking solely about observing the horizontal slider. However, yes, the rings do show the mapping of each input hue to output hue.
The moving spectrum in the horizontal hue slider is redundant when there are the dual rings, I guess, but it's a hangover from an earlier version of the HSL Shift where there was no ring and, instead, there was a fixed spectrum bar above or below the moving spectrum slider to show the mapping of input hue to output hue. Now that there are rings, the slider could be a solid grey or any colour.

Hi im140.6,
No need to do anything besides reporting the issue here in the Forums as you did (this is Affinity's official support channel). It's up with the Moderators (from various Serif's departments/teams - Support/QA etc) to test/log issues like these to be fixed. Thanks for bringing this up to our attention. Fixed issues are then listed along with new Beta releases in the Beta sections of the forums.
We usually also update the threads where the bugs were reported so users know the issues were fixed.

Moderator:   I want to see a moderator's reply be: "here's how to do that", "it's not available now, but here's how to add it to the feature request", or "here's a work-around".   
It appears you are correct that Crop cannot default to the Mode 'Original Ratio';  however there may be a potentially helpful work-around.  If one selects a crop preset (gear icon in version 1.7), that selection will become the default until subsequently changed (selecting the modes Unconstrained and Original Ratio will release a preset as a default).  If im140.6 has a series of images that have a size that's in the presets, use that.  If they're not in the presets, a custom preset can be added.
As a feature request, I would like to see 'Original Ratio' added to the presets and behave like other presets by becoming the default until subsequently changed.  How does that request get communicated?
 
after I posted the above, I learned that crop preset apparently (per other posts) can only be created for "standard ratios", whatever that is...ugh