Excavating to leave a level finish

What is the best way to excavate to leave a level surface behind. I've only been using the loader so far, but I find I end up leaving a rough finish. This makes it even harder to try to dig to a level finish due to the rough approach into the dig area.

Also, how do you create smooth ramps? Seems very hard to do. Thanks

Edit - Levelling by hand is slow but does work. I've used the roller now and it works quite well, particularly on vibrating mode. I've also edited the mouse controls of the loader bucket that has helped. I used the shift + LB or RB for up and down, leaving mouse movement only to tip the bucket. This had also helped.