Using a PIC there's no better way than using the (E)CCP module in PWM-mode - no.

Using the HPWM command to "drive" the (E)CCP module in PWM-mode may not be ideal as have been described but it will work as a starting point. If you want to drive the ECCP module manually there's another thread active right now which discusses just that and there's a lot of info burried in the forum.

And, as have been said a couple of times now, you DON'T want to make the PWM output "slower", you want to slow down the rest of the program. It's not the PWM frequency that determines the "dimming speed" it's how often you update the dutycycle.

/Henrik.