I'm setting up my darkroom in a new town. The hardness of the water here is off the scale. There seem to be deposits of white film on everything tap water touches. The measurement of hardness is so high that water filter specs say they can't handle it.

I have trouble with water spots on negatives, and developing requires special care with photoflo using distilled water. I've pretty well solved that problem with negatives.

My question is: What special treatment should I give my prints to avoid water spots and white spots?

Soaking them, after washing, in distilled water occurs to me. Using photoflow occurs to me, but I'm wary of its leaving a while film. If I soak in distilled water, then for how long?

Has anyone had any experience out there with extremely hard water?

-- Paul Arnold (osprey@bmt.net), September 11, 1999

Answers

Filtering the water coming into the darkroom will help some, but using distilled water for the final bath with or without Photo-Flo might still be necessary. Distilled water for mixing chemicals might also be advisable. It is in my darkroom. Using RC paper, I wipe them on clean towels to remove most of the surface water and than them to dry.

-- jim jones (jjones@greenhills.net), September 19, 1999.

Paul,

The good news is hard water washes film and prints better than soft water.

I have very hard water. I give everything a quick final rinse in distilled or RO water. You just need a quick rinse to dilute the hard water, no soaking required.

-- Terry Carraway (TCarraway@compuserve.com), September 29, 1999.

RO water is water out of a reverse osmosis machine. There are whole house models or table top models to produce close to distilled water.

The US Military uses this technology to produce drinking water from just about any source.

-- Terry Carraway (TCarraway@compuserve.com), September 30, 1999.