Thank you for your reply, moriador.  I do have "Smooth polygons" unchecked, and "Use displacement maps" checked, in the render settings panel.  I assume that is what hameleon meant in the ReadMe.

I realized I had turned off "Indirect Lighting" because it slows the rendering tremendously, and I get overly bright renders when it is on.  I turned that back on, and ran the close-up again, and the mesh is no longer visible in the render, but I can still see the alpha around the lace.  And the light colored stuff in the background is blown out like an over-exposed photograph.

I do not have "Gamma correction" checked, I'll try enabling that.  I'm not sure where the gamma settings for the trans, bump and displacement maps are, but I'll try to find them.

  ~ Russ