Minimal histogram alteration?

[tsimon]

What is the best possible way to render a plane with a 350ppi bitmap mapped onto it with the vray physical camera so that it preserves as much of the quality(color and texture) of the original? In other words, what settings would theoretically pass the bitmap through vray so that it is as untouched as possible? I'm guessing that color shifting due to the resampling of the image is really sort of unavoidable, and that this is not the focus of vray's capabilities, but I thought I'd ask.

I've attached two images, the first is the input bitmap(8bit RGB JPG), the second is the output from vray(16-bit RGB TIF). I tried an 8bit TIF, but the histogram was really clamped. The blacks are still not as rich, and there seems like a bit of pixel sampling shift, so that it's blurring slightly.

The camera is setup so that it is framing the image plane and rendering at the same pixel dims as the original bitmap.

I know the obvious question is why; just trust me, please. Suffice to say it's going to be blown up, and the printed quality of the original image is important.

Thanks in advance!
Tom

Settings:
3dsmax 2009 64bit
Vray 1.50sp2

No GI, Fixed image sampler, no AA filter, Linear multiply w/gamma 2.2

Camera:
Exposure off, neutral WB

Lighting:
Single Vray Light plane above camera

[3DMK]

and there seems like a bit of pixel sampling shift, so that it's blurring slightly.

Turn your bitmap blur value [in material editor] to .01 as the default value of 1.0 does create some blur.

Also if you don't need shadows then just use the bitmap in a Vray LightMaterial as this is self illuminated so you don't need a light.