I cannot work out how to blend the images into the background, as can be seen here: http://www.mint.com/index.html (at the top between the image and the gradient background). I can't make a decent gradient and desperately need to blend in the same was as this website in order for it to look fine. Without blending, it's going to look stupid.

Check out the link again to see the layout so far (displayed at the bottom of the list of images). http://www.ioimi.com/samples