Basic question about Copy + Paste

[fluxx]

Coming from Photoshop Elements I have a problem understanding the basic workflow of selection + copy + paste. 

 

Workflow:

1. Make a selection, eg. Rectangle Tool (M)
2. Copy
3. Paste

I would assume that now I have a new layer with the area of the last active layer I selected with the rectangle tool. Instead, I get a copy of the whole last active layer.

 

Copy flattened + Paste creates a copy of the actual selection, but for all layers and not the last active one.

 

"What's my problem?"  B)

 

[fluxx]

OK, I googled about an hour without finding an answer and now, 5 minutes after my post I did  :blink:

 

This comment helped me a lot: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/10915-copy-or-cut-and-paste-part-of-an-image/?p=46769

 

"An Image layer is considered an object layer (like a path, a shape or text). It's an entity/object by itself.

A pixel layer is a just a generic container where you can perform pixel based editing tasks. So in order to edit an Image (object) - to paint over it for example -, you must first convert it to a Pixel layer, rasterising the Image (object)."