Varian, I usually start off like that. All these in this pic were fractal generated ones. They look as though they slope down nicely in the terrain editor, but when you stick them in the image they are too steep again. I might try the gradient fill in PSP, or maybe the feature in Corel Draw that lets you make a gradient between two shapes of differing colours and shades. Can't remember what it is called now, but I use it when making the 3d shapes for the magic eye 3d images. That gives you quite a lot of control over gradients.