How to copy a selection from background layer to new layer while keeping the original location

[mikeloeven]

Having a complete nightmare of a time trying to make a simple meme I need to cut a section of background layer into a new layer to edit it however every time I paste the selection into a new layer the selected pixels appear in the top left corner of the canvas instead of overlaying the same area they were copied from. There seems no method to re align the selected pixels with the original background layer without eyeballing it. I cant imagine this is intended behavior have I encountered some weird bug or is there a specific method of doing this

[cameronwhite]

I think what's happening is that copying the image places it on the clipboard, similar to if you had taken a screenshot, copied an image elsewhere, etc, but that clipboard image has no information about its original location it was copied from. So, pasting just places it at the top left of the image

Another workflow would be to:

• use Layers -> Duplicate Layer to copy the layer (or use the button on the layers panel)
• select the area you want
• Edit -> Invert Selection
• Edit -> Erase Selection
  leaving you with the selection cut out on a separate new layer