Custom DEM Height Map Problem

[Redmen]

I created a custom DEM for my 16x map using real survey data. I used this method:
https://medium.com/farmsim-forensics/fa ... 4c267a60e5

The resulting PNG looks great, but not so much when I open the map in the editor. The first time around the map looked like needles. Then I discovered the DEM PNG was 64-bit. I managed to downscale it to 8-bit in paint.net and that made a huge improvement. It looks pretty good now when zoomed out, but pretty rough up close. I am going to have to sculpt and smooth the whole map. The terrain height is also too high. I have a real life range of 100 that in my PNG, so I am using 50 in the editor because my units per pixel is 2. It doesn't seem to matter what I use though, the terrain is too high and rough.

-Does anyone know a way to downscale a 64-bit PNG to 16-bits? Paint.net only gives me the option of 24 or 8. GIMP doesn't appear to do it at all.
I believe 16 is what it's supposed to be and that might help.

-What should I do to fix the terrain height? I am thinking about regenerating my PNG and using a higher upper elevation value so the changes in elevation aren't to abrupt from dark to light.

[Redmen]

Ok, I got it workable. I figured out how to change the bit depth on GIMP to 16-bit grayscale. That made a big difference. I generated several different PNGs with different elevation ranges and the results were not good. The original with the actual range is best, so I'm just going to smooth the whole map out so it looks nice. At least with it this way I can see where all the roads go clearly. I also left max terrain height in the editor at the default 255, because lowering it drops the terrain mesh down below the surface so you can't paint it. I can't explain this, but Baurer Brown had a video where he was changing it to suit the map. Mine doesn't work that way for some reason, so I guess I'll do things the hard way, as usual haha.