Unfortunately, there is a reason that search/replace functions work best with text....

In terms of image contents, what constitutes "similar" enough to qualify as a match? Pixels and RGB values (within a certain threshold)? Is the pixel in question a layer pixel or the end result of a layer group (or the whole image layer stack) ? And for a given source area, how much (as a %) of the target area must be similar to the source to consider it a match? If there are several matches, are they allowed to overlap (and if so, what happens next) ?

Now if you want to manually copy/paste one segment of an image into another, aside from the obvious Edit menu commands you can also use the Clone tool to do this. Make a selection around the target area, specify your source area, then paint the target area.

-- Stratadrake strata_ranger@hotmail.com
--------------------
Numbers may not lie, but neither do they tell the whole truth.

From: gimp-user-list  on behalf of Rick C. Hodgin 
Sent: Saturday, December 17, 2016 2:25 PM
To: gimp-user-list@gnome.org
Subject: [Gimp-user] Find and Replace

How about a feature where you select something, click Find and it selects
all of the matching areas in the image.  Click Find and Replace and it
selects all of the matching areas where you can then de-select or select
new areas if you want to, each of the size of the initial selection, and it
brings up another GIMP editor window where you can replace the content in
those areas with an edited image which can then be applied to each of the
selected areas, with an option to do each in its own layer so you can apply
different modes on it?

I could've used this feature today.

Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin