Slightly different monitor calibration Q?

Hopefully this hasn't been answered in depth or anything, if it has, please feel free to link me, slap my wrists and let this drop off the front page quickly...

I've read Rene's sticky thread, and amidst getting confused I'm still thinking that what I have is a problem that's not quite the normal.

I have two seperate PC's, one using an old Princeton 17" CRT, the other using a Suyama 19" TFT. These show drastically different versions of the same image. This isn't suprising really...

Now, I have my own printers here, a multi purpose Epson and a Canon iP4200, but they rarely get used for anything to do with printing my photos. As and when I do print I take them to work and run them through the minilab. Or get them commercially printed, converting to CMYK in PS at the time. The minilabs, and indeed those of the whole company are calibrated each morning. The machine (Fuji Frontiers) prints out what can best be described as a colour and B&W test strip, and there's a calibrating device on top of the machine that readjusts the settings if anything's out. There are also setups done every time a new load of paper is put in. The head office also runs a service for posters which is currently proving quite useful and does I think try and set the printers for these to similar settings.

How do I get both screens/PC's set up so a) they look the same (or same as can be given they're different designs), and b)so I know that the settings at which they arrive will match the results I'll get back from my minilabs and poster printers (commercial printers onto CMYK seem to follow closely the results of the minilabs here)?

I'm guessing a calibration tool is going to come into it somewhere, but don't they work by adjusting your screen to suit a print from your printer at home? I've currently got a Spyder 2 and a Pantone Huey saved at work ready to buy but I know nothing of them or this problem really, so bow to your advice.

Many thanks for any help in advance, and once again apologies if this has ben covered already. The setting up to suit occasional third party printers seems to be something I can't find reference to.

a) Would be relatively easy if both monitors are on the same PC: Get a calibrator capable of calibrating both diplays seperately. (Your video card should also support this). Then in the calibrations software there is an option called "Match Monitor Profiles" (Monaco Optix) (Not sure about the Huey and Spyder2, I think the latter might support it)
What this does is *bring the best monitor down to mimic the worst one*. So you might want to think twice about using this

I could imagine that you calibrate both monitors on both PC's, and then calibrate the LCD again, using the CRT monitors luminance as target. (If it's really old, it'll probabely be well below 100 cd/m)

I think I'ld calibrate both seperate, look which one is best, and use that for critical work

b) should follow from a well calibrated monitor, *softproofing* and a color managed workflow..

manipula wrote in post #3229137
I'm guessing a calibration tool is going to come into it somewhere, but don't they work by adjusting your screen to suit a print from your printer at home?

No, they do not. They adjust your screen by displaying colors and greytones generated by the software on it and physically measuring the deviation from what they should be. The process is entirely without reference to any printer.

Cool, thanks for that guys. As you can see, this side of our world is a bit alien to me, and I'm guessing once I get my head round it will produce rich rewards. So basically, if I eliminate trying to get both PC's bang on, and put the CRT monitor onto the machine which I use for editing photos, get that calibrated and set up, it should leave me with files coming off that machine which should print correctly?

Does anyone have any preferences over which is the better piece of kit out of the Pantone Huey and the Spyder 2?

Some links Yahoo found: 1, 2...