Reducing layer size without loosing quality?

[boo]

GIMP Version: 2.8.14
Operating System: Windows
GIMP Experience: New User

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Hello. I am looking for a suggestions how to do such thing. I would like to paste an object croped from one image to another image. The thing is that the object i want to paste is to large in size and i need to reduce it significantly to look god in target picture. The problem is when i am scalling layer everything looks good on preview but when i click "scale" the quality of the pasted object drops down drastically and it becomes heavily pixelated. That happens regardles of chosen interpolation method. I was expecting such wuality loss with enlarging but not with shrinking the layer. Are there any way to reduce this quality loss?

[ofnuts]

What sizes are we talking about (before/after)? Is the target image color-indexed?

[Wallace]

Having a larger target might help, if that's available.