Hi there libraryian, yes, you are correct. You need to save the flattened version of your height map as a .jpg rather than an .xcf. I guess I forgot to mention this in the tutorial. I will have to correct that. Glad to here that despite the tears, the tutorial is working well for you so far. If you do come across any other problem areas in the tutorial though feel free to let me know.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh