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Print one small stepped strip in the filament you use, hold it to the light you will use, and read off it where the detail runs out: the last step that is still washed out and the first that is already solid black. Save those numbers as a profile.
From then on the lithophane makers map your photo onto the thickness range your filament really shows detail in, so dark tones stop merging into black and light tones stop turning to plain white. It takes about ten minutes and a few grams of filament. The strip is an STL download, so it needs a free account.
Past a certain thickness your filament passes no useful light, and below a certain thickness it passes too much. If the thickness range does not match your filament and lamp, detail is lost at one end or both. Calibrating fixes that.
In the filament you will use, at your usual lithophane layer height and line width, with 100 % infill.
For every filament and colour you use for lithophanes, yes: white PLA from two brands can pass very different amounts of light.
The actual lamp or LED the finished lithophane will sit on, in a dim room.