Gareth Humphreys

Gareth, I can't say I follow a lot of that. Maybe post an example?
 
In the meantime.... please be careful with Remove White Paper. Any part/color of the image with an L value greater than 50 will also be partially (according to the L%) erased.
Perhaps this is what's happened and what you're referring to when you say "its overlaying tones from the original image"?

Hi Gareth,
If you see this tutorial: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/designer/ipad/video/273647336/ It covers text on a path which is only an option in Affinity Designer and not Photo.
 

Hi @Gareth Humphreys
Make sure the ellipse is still selected, select the Artistic Text Tool and tap on the path of the ellipse, not inside. i.e. where the green starting triangle is showing below.

You can swipe upwards to set the size of the text.

Like this.
 
8CE627D8-6FE5-4D84-B42A-E2A05F1C1889.MP4

Already tried it, not as good, the trouble with the adobe suite of apps is that to apply multiple effects, you have to switch between the apps, with is time consuming and annoying... 
so app you mentioned does indeed work, but is not a fully featured... it's more of a one trick pony....

Hi Gareth Humphreys,
Welcome to Affinity Forums :)
open the first image as usual tap More (the three dots icon) on the top of the interface and select Place ▸ Place from Photos/iCloud depending from where you want to import the second image then tap the screen to place it on the document. Position the image as you wish or scale it to match the first image height with the Move Tool. open the Layers Studio, click the plus sign and select New Fill layer (we will use this layer as a mask to control the opacity of the second image) - the new fill layer will appear on the top of the other two covering the canvas with a solid colour tap and drag from left to right over it to create a gradient - you should see the gradient handles/controls appear on canvas open the Layers Studio and tap and hold the fill layer until an horizontal blue line appears, then drag the layer over the thumbnail of the second image layer (the thumbnail will become a solid blue when you hover it (we are doing this to use the gradient fill layer as a mask for the second image) tap the fill layer we just created in the Layers Studio to ensure its selected - you should see the gradient handles on canvas at this point now tap the node (the small end circle) of the gradient handle that you want to make semi transparent/fade, open the Colours Studio and reduce its opacity to 0% - you should now be seeing the fade effect appearing adjust the position of both gradient's nodes on canvas to fine tune the transition/fade effect Let me know if you still have trouble.