Salt weathering is an important cause of damage in building materials (stones, bricks, etc..) and threatens our cultural heritage (statues, fresco, monuments..). However, there is still a lack of fundamental understanding of the difference in crystallization damage between different salts such as sodium sulfate and sodium chloride. We study, using direct imaging and optical microscopy, the growth of salt patterns during evaporation of saturated salt solutions on flat surfaces with well controlled wetting properties. The results show the importance of wetting properties of the wall and the presence or absence of a liquid film on the place where crystallization takes place (preference for liquid/air, solid/liquid interfaces or solid/liquid/air contact line) and the crystallization pattern. These results were completed by the experimental studies of crystal growth in capillary tubes with different geometries (circular and square cross section) as simple model systems for a single pore within a porous medium. For the square capillary tube, the presence of thick liquid films in the corners strongly affects the drying rate, ion transport and the onset of crystallization. Consequently, the crystallization patterns are found to be very different even for a single salt in the two types of capillaries.