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Thank you very much for your elaborate answer / explanation!
Like I said I use SilverFast (Ai, v6.5) at home - with a QUATO IntelliScan 5000 (apparently a rebranded Plustek 8200i), which is a discontinued dedicated 35mm scanner in the sub-€500 range (so I'm not expecting miracles, though the thing has a pretty good reputation).
I take it that when you speak of profiles this is what SilverFast calls "NegaFix (profiles)".
The thing is they stopped doing those years ago as they say they are unable to now, so there (for example) aren't even profiles for the new Portras.I haven't gone through the tedious process of making my own profiles yet.
Maybe I should really invest the time to do so, alas I'm not sure how well I can do given my (slight red-green) color vision deficiency.So what I often do is just use a wrong profile / use one that looks better than the others (sometimes playing a bit with colour sliders in SilverFast as well though I like to avoid this).
So with (new) Portra 400 I choose the old Portra 160 VC profile for example.
There are Films (like Kodak Gold) where the dedicated profile just looks very bad / way too contrast-y - so I use a different one for this as well - I just checked; the last roll (the cars with the magenta cast, shot on Kodak Gold) I scanned with the old Portra 400 VC profile - which looked fine at first but as we can agree is definitely very magenta.It does not help that SilverFast and my computer have their own quirks; meaning that sometimes the file I get after scanning looks very different from what I saw in the preview window.
This seems to happen especially if the computer went in idle / sleep mode during the roll and I resume scanning later, though sometimes it does not happen.
I'm at loss. Already had long chats with a very helpful guy at LaserSoft, who was kind enough to help me get the best possible drivers for this old piece of technology. Maybe I'll just have to call it a day soon.
Thought about purchasing "ColorPerfect" to solve the problem but this seems even more faff to use as doing one's own profiles so..Anyway, thanks again!
salad-
There's no need to pay for more software, just try to adjust your settings in Silverfast and save it per film. But as per my other ratty response - with varying light conditions, you will still need some adjustment in photoshop. It's easy once you see it, and the difference is quite tangible.
Using hue/saturation, selecting Magenta, and killing the saturation for that slider is incredibly easy. So long as there were no actual details lost, it is an easy fix. If there are details going grey as a result, you shift the hue for magenta to a yellow colour normally.
pdlouche
Generally it's because the profiling is wrong. Each film base is a different colour, and the actual colour dyes from each manufacturer are different.
In a lab like where I worked between my two photography degrees, the machine would correct this automatically because it was built for film, and then it was only fine adjustments to get a good colour cast if people asked for hand finishing. The light source inside was particular to the machine.
Flatbed scanners and other consumer grade scanners rely on basic film profiles (like the Epson software), which do a good job of correcting colours based on programmed settings. However these profiles can't do everything, because the storage, temperature and age of the film will shift the gamut, as will the condition of the chemicals in the lab that processed the film. They are also not often light-tight and use a different type of light and sensor array to traditional lab equipment.
That is all taking for granted that the film used was the correct film for application, that the film had the right colour temperature and a filter was used at the time for differing light conditions during exposure. Digital cameras use AWB to compensate for shifts in colour temperature, and even they can get it wrong. It also takes for granted that you have profiled your monitor.
In short, the answer to your question is because it is a photograph that has neither been taken nor processed and scanned by someone with enough control/experience to compensate for the variables faced with processing film.
Magenta casts just happen, it's a fact of life with bad profiling. You have to make your own profiles when scanning, and finish your photographs properly.
For real fun, do it in a colour darkroom.