>>3565857Drum scan and manual inversion definitely helps, but I had pretty good luck with the Epson Scan software and it's inversions back when I was using the Epson. I generally try to overexpose my negatives a bit, always metering Portra 160 at 100.
Here's a crop of a small part of this one
>>3563886 at 100%. This one was ridiculously sharp.