John Rostron

This one uses molded fragments drawing from at least half a dozen images, including the remains of torn-off posters from the plywood wall around a construction site and - believe it or not - a spider web,.
 

I have also tried this, resizing to 1500px, Lanczos, and see no moire at any view magnification between 25% and 400%.
John

Developed in DxO PL7 and finish with Affinity Photo 2.2.1

I use PhotoZoom rather than Gigapixel, and I tried what you have been doing using PhotoZoom. It uses splines as part of the resizing process.
The size of the output from PhotoZoom as exactly the same as the input.
John

As a substitute for copy and & paste inside
You should be able to use Layer > Duplicate (CTRL+J) and Arrange > Move Inside to move the duplicated layer inside the target layer - which will work correctly in a macro
But as I don't fully understand what you are doing it's hard to advise further at this stage
 

@VectorWhiz, I downloaded your original png image and applied a curves as close as I could to your one. What I got was this:

I have to admit that the solarised effect was more what I expected from the shape of the curve you depicted. It was nothing like the first image you showed.
John

As has been stated many times before, Serif never (well, hardly ever) comments on what it is working on until it announces it in a beta. For all we know, it has a team of twenty developers working on AI. Then again ...
John

Prefs → External Viewer → choose APh

I waited all summer to catch this female of natural aviation at the lunch counter getting her fill up.  I'm glad Affinity Photo was there when the waiting was over.

If you are selling a reproduction, are you not then in breach of copyrght? Even though you are not passing off the original work as your own, you are making a profit from the other's intellectual property.
John

If you are selling a reproduction, are you not then in breach of copyrght? Even though you are not passing off the original work as your own, you are making a profit from the other's intellectual property.
John

Surely nature can take some of the credit 😜

100% Affinity Photo 

I used some macros from James Ritson.

Thanks man! Someone else did one for me, but its nice to know the steps to do it!

This is an extension of my tutorial on Trigonometrical transformations using Filter > Distort > Equations. This one is focused on simulating flags waving in a light  wind. Flags have an advantage in that they have a standard shape (width is twice the height).
Edit: I have been told that this is not true. I stand corrected.
To get the desired waving, I apply a sine transformation to each of the x and y-axes. The equations to apply are:
x=(x+20*sin(360*y/h))/c-100*b
y=y+a*(h/10)*sin(2*360*x/w)-(x/w)*h/10
I add a sideways sine wave to the x-axis as a function of the y-position. When the flag waves, the visual width is decreased, so I have added a parameter c which scales the width of the flag. The parameter b is an offset, since the left-hand corners of the flag can otherwise move outside the canvas.
The y-axis also has a sine wave, depending on the x-position. The parameter a determines the magnitude of this sine wave. The final expression (-(x/w)*h/10) ensures that the fly  (RHS in this case) is below the hoist (LHS here). (Definitions: hoist is the part next to the flagpole; fly is the part flying free.)
Here is the UK Union Flag, plus a bit of extra space above and below to create room:

And waving in the breeze:

And here is a macro that implements these transformations:
FlagWaving.afmacro
And a macro library containing the single macro:
FlagWaving.afmacros
The parameters should appear when you run the macro. Parameter a controls the vertical wave; parameter b controls the horizontal offset; parameter c controls the overall horizontal scaling.
This macro will not simulate a flag in too strong a wind, where the parts overlap!
John
 

Your loss.
John

Your loss.
John

Your loss.
John

While I'm respectful of the awesome complexity of something like Affinity Photo, I will say that the problem the OP describes is one that I've encountered as well - and it's not confined to Affinity, it comes up in other big applications.
I go to Help to find out how to do something - it describes how to use the So-And-So tool - but I'm unable to find that tool in the UI.   Sometimes it's not even currently in the visible UI - for example, maybe it's not in a default toolbar.  The Help doesn't tell you where it's hiding- and I think this is because in a big application you typically have way too many options for how toolbars are configured and what's in them...
 
 

Pictures were taken by phone.  Duplicated layer, added Screen or Multiply blend,  adjusted opacity between 25 and 80%, then added Enhance Red, Enhance Yellow, Subtle Enhance Blue/ Yellow macros by James Ritson, adjusted opacity between 40 and 70%.
Location is Groot Ammers Gelkens, Wilenweg, Sat 5th August,  6 ; 30 am
 

Clicking Show More gives me this:

It's on the YouTube page, in the description.

I brought this beautiful leaf home from a walk in the park and photographed it. The cropping and post-processing was done in Affinity Photo, the background textures I created with Filterforge.
The leaf reminds us that despite everything autumn will soon arrive ...

One day later both are standing on the trashbin …