Residue on dishes

It could be a build up IN your dishwasher itself.

Put about 1/2 cup of vinegar into every wash and see if that helps.. ?

clean your dimmed up glassware with a lime cutter (I forget the name of the brand but it cuts rust, lime and other grit). If this works then your water has a lot of dissociated calcium and magnesium. A commercial water treatment system based upon your speciific water chemistry is the ticket.

Our water is just the opposite, its very acidic and buffers itself on the well casing and the copper pipes.There are other things in our ground water (natural radioactivity from the quartz shelves) SO we have a series of Kinetico tanks with Ca/Mg , a Mn dropout and an activated Carbon filter for polishing. Our water tastes like spring water now and its pH is neutral and its no longer aggressive on the system.

Dont just go out and use the yellow pages for water treatment cause theres a lot of em out there that arent pros. We have a coup,le on A2K that have always been butting heads about the best treatment for special cases and they sound like they know what theyre talking about.

I like Kinetico cause the backwashings are all pressure run and dont need any electricity hookups or computers other than a little battery operated pH and clarity recorder.

you can find a lime cleaner called CLR in majority of stores.
is that the brand you are thinking of?

Could be 'etching'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishwasher

yep. Try that first. That will tell you whether its deposition or pitting. Then in each case youre action is clear.

Have the water tested from the softener to make sure it's soft. Make sure there is no salt bridge in the salt tank also. Even slight hardness can cause etching.
RJ