Gradient perfectly around border in Photoshop?

Breezeonhold

In ski safari I noticed that the ground has a perfect gradient around even irregular mountains.

However whenever I try a gradient on my image it doesn't fit around perfectly instead it comes out more like this. Notice how the gradient doesn't go up the mountain and it's super white at the top where as in ski safari it does somehow.

It's hard to tile my images(trying to make dynamic environment) when my gradient is linear. What is a good way in Photoshop to make my gradient have a consistent path for the gradient like it has in ski safari.

Thanks

Socks

Just select the area of your mountain, make it into a channel, blur that channel to taste, then load it in as a selection and use it to colour the mountain.

In fact there are a thousand ways to do this, but I doubt the makers of Ski Safari just grabbed a Photoshop tool and pulled it over their mountain image, their artisit probably sat down and did most of it by hand inside photoshop.

SlickZero

Yeah, @Socks is right. Many, many different ways to do this. Here's yet another technique...

http://www.adobetutorialz.com/articles/2909/1/We-wish-you-a-Merry-Christmas-illustration