Bridge CS4 desaturating thumbnails

Question

Approximately 1 second or less after opening Bridge CS4 it slightly desaturates the colours of the thumbnails - this is especially noticeable with greens. When any image is then opened in PsCS4 it contimues to display the desaturated colours.
I have compared this bebaviour with Bridge CS3 and PsCS3 where it does not happen, as far as I can tell, because the amount of desaturation is fairly subtle.
This all started 2 days ago just after I replaced my el cheapo Philips B190B monitor (which nevertheless displays wonderful colours :1280x1024 pixels and probably a fairly narrow  gamut approximating sRGB) with an NEC 2690WUXi2 (1920x1200 displaying 97.8% of AdobeRGB 1998). There may be no connection but I thought that I should mention it.
All images were produced in Ps within the sRGB Working Space and were duly tagged with the sRGB profile. The problem persits even though I have switched back to the Philips monitor. Both monitors were calibrated and profiled with the iOneD2 puck and the latest Gretag software.
Anybody else experienced this, or have any idea what may be happening?

Answer 1

When Bridge first finds an image, it displays an icon or a thumbnail built in to the image file, if available. If Bridge is set to show high quality thumbnails, it will then go about rendering its own version of the image thumbnail, using whichever program necessary. This usually takes a fraction of a second to a few seconds per image, depending on content.
Bridge is a colour-managed application. Basically, it understands document colour profiles and display device profiles, and adjusts colour output accordingly. Sometimes this doesn't happen straight away—there may be a delay after thumbnails are updated, or you might need to force the display profile adjustment by minimising and maximising the window. But, if pictures still don't display their colours correctly, there could be one of two reasons: the images were not recorded correctly, or the computer/software is not set up correctly.
Assuming (!) your pictures have been made correctly, this leaves your computer set-up. If you are displaying JPEG or PSD images, the problem will probably be down to incorrect calibration and profiling of your monitor. Jumping to a wide-gamut monitor can be a bit of a culture shock, and you notice just how many Windows programs are not colour-managed. You need to be sure that your monitor has been properly calibrated and you are using the correct display profile. You also need to be sure that no other software is interfering with this process, like gamma adjusters and display driver utilities.
Raw images are different, in that there is no such thing as an out-of-the-camera look, only the embedded thumbnail, which is recorded according to the camera's own develop settings (but if you wanted that look, you wouldn't be shooting raw!). Adobe Camera Raw defaults can (and should) be adjusted to your own taste, and this will have a big effect on the appearance of high quality thumbnails in Bridge. If your defaults are poor, your thumbnails will be poor too.
Desaturated colours are often the result of displaying a wide-gamut source with a small gamut profile, e.g. displaying an Adobe RGB source with an sRGB profile. The opposite can happen with wide-gamut monitors and non-colour-management-aware programs, and you get garish colours on your expensive new monitor.