Fadeouthelp needed.

[cyberdread]

I am trying to make a smooth fade-out to total darkness from the grid border on the left and right side:
www.xeracydeproject.com
you can see on this page that the fadeout isnt smooth. I have tried a mix of basic lighting effects and vingette with corel photopaint 11 but I cant get it smoother.
I tried air brushing with deep-paint 3d but when I open a JPEG it makes the whole image brighter so against the black background it looks messed up.
anyone got any tips?
I also tried all the blur effects but they didnt work either, I just need a fadeout so smooth you cant tell where the edge is at all.
any ideas are appreciated.

 

[StudioWorks]

Have you tryed using the gradient tool ? Does wonders you know

 

[paaaaaaaaaa]

layer mask

 

[cyberdread]

I dont know how to do either of those things. can you tell me basic how or direct me to a tutorial?

 

[paaaaaaaaaa]

here

 

[StudioWorks]

good-tutorials.com has a nice tutorials about gradients, layer masks and just about everything you need on Photoshop.