In my western blot from last week, I saw that bands in lane 1 and 2 looked just like my control lane 5. I left the membrane in water and on Monday (after the weekend), the bands in lane 1 and 2 look lighter than lane 5. Why will the intensity of bands change in just 2 lanes but not in lane 5. I did try and quantify them using image J
Without knowledge of the detection chemistry you used I have to use a crystal ball and assume that you used a peroxydase-conjugated detection antibody and a DAB-based reagent, that left brown bands on your blot. This product is light-sensitive. If you add 2 mM Ni2+ or Co2+ to your reagent, a black band of elemental metal will form, this is stable, gives a high contrast and is easy to photograph. ImageJ should have no problems with these bands. Of course, you need to safe your images w/o lossy compression (tiff, not jpeg).
As others have said you shouldnt leave in water. If wanting to keep the membrane to look at again then either leave in PBS or PBS tween. If wanting to probe again then there are ways to strip probes from the membrane either mildly using SDS based solutions or harsher treatment with warmed solutions containing beta mercaptoethanol.
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