Soft water in the darkroom

[PeterDendrinos]

I have been running well water in darkrooms for a very long time, and never had any problems. The other day my wife throws down a dictate. WE ARE GOING TO GET A WHOLE HOUSE WATER SOFTENER!

Ok then… So… what might I need to be concerned about with soft water in the process rather than the straight water I have been using. Are there issues?

Thanks for the input

Pete

 

[Ole]

The only water we get here is soft, and I've never had any problems at all!

 

[Monophoto]

Peter -

Yeah, that happens!

When we got our system many years ago, I was still doing cibachrome printing. I found that the change in water chemistry caused a change in the required filtration to maintain a neutral color balance in that process. I was not able to successfully recalibrate for this change, but to be honest, however, I don't know whether the inability to recalibrate was caused by the water or by my flagging interest in cibachrome printing.

I did not detect any change at all in black and white processing that I could attribute to the water softener.

 

[joeyk49]

Soft water here...I don't notice any issues or problems.

Oops. Let me clarify...no problems that I can trace back to the water. Its usually the darkroom technician (yours truly), who's at fault...

 

[Loose Gravel]

Naturally soft water and softened water are different chemically. HOw this will affect your process, I don't know. I grew up where the water out of the tap was almost distilled. Now I use very hard water.