Already done: I think I'll write all steps that I followed. Not now, it's almoast midnight.
Anyway, on GIMP I used color curves. The standard curve is y = x, I used y = 32 * nroot(4, x / 32). So for high mountains, behavior is nearly asymptotic. You can see that Himalayan is nearly flat, like a mesa.
But, this is not sufficient. In a 512x512 Himalaya is so near to the coast that I can't do a passage between India and South-East of Asia.
While experimenting with an Asia map, I decided to push the size up to 1024x1024 — and honestly, it's a game changer. At 512x512, a continent like Asia feels cramped and loses a lot of its geographic character; with 1024x1024 there's actual room to breathe, to place mountain ranges, small seas, like Black and Red ones, and biomes in a way that makes the map feel like a real place rather than a compressed approximation.
A map of this scale could support larger teams, longer games, and genuinely epic campaigns across Central Asia, India, or the Silk Road.
Would anyone be up for playing something this large?
(I don't know how to create a poll, please can any admin do it or maybe answer in this thread)