When you say "highlights" are you referring to the negative or to the final print? IOW, are we talking about high density on the negative or low density? Just need some context here or people will be talking at cross purposes and confusion might reign.
The limitation is probably not in software. It's the hardware in the flatbed scanner. The scanner is scanning a line at a time. So it can not be optimized for each pixel -- for that you need a drum scanner. What this means typically is that pro-sumer flat bed scanners were designed so that everything is scanned using a set density range. If what you are scanning fits in that range, great. If not...
Second limitation is that all the pro-sumer flatbed scanners I know of were optimized for color materials. So... dye clouds, not metallic silver grain clumps. The difference here is that the dyes are translucent. The metallic silver is opaque. So the metallic silver exhibits Callier Effect. This in turn decreases contrast in high density areas, what most scanner operators call highlights.
Callier Effect is the same thing that effects enlargers in darkroom printing. It is more prevalent in cubic grained films like Tri-X, HP-5+, etc. and less prevalent in tabular grained films like TMY-2, Delta, etc.
Many years of experimenting, and working with, a scanning workflow taught me this (and yes, this is just me and may not apply to anyone else): for capture, tabular grained films. If you aren't going to print in the darkroom ever, then bring your Dmax on your negative down a little, maybe a stop. If your scanner is having trouble reading the opposite end, bring your Dmin up a little. These two things may make it difficult to print this negative in the darkroom, which is why I'm warning about that.
If you shrink the density range a bit, the scanner will probably like it, and you'll be able to print however you print a little easier with less corrections in your photoeditor. But every scanner is different, as is every scanner workflow. So you'll have to do some experimentation to find your own personal sweet spot.
Else, if you *are* going to darkroom print these negatives, optimize for darkroom printing. If you can easily print your negative on a #2 printing paper and get the results you want, your scanner should be able to scan it without too much trouble.
It took me the better part of a decade to learn enough (in large part thanks to many on this forum, and others) to be able to reduce it all into a couple of paragraphs like the above. Do with that what you will.
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