Bridge CS6 Previews of raw-files have bad (pixelated) quality after editing.

Question

I'm having problems with using Bridge for browsing my pictures. Preview quality of edited raw (nef) files is terrible. It looks like a very low quality jpeg. The untouched NEF's are fine, and saving the edited NEF as PSD also gives a perfect preview.
Purging Cache doesn't work.
I'm using:
Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit Version: 6.1 Service Pack 1
Adobe Bridge CS6 5.0.2.4 x64
Camera Raw 7.3.0.71
Adobe Photoshop Version: 13.0.1  x64
2x Monitor 1920 x 1200
Photo's made with Nikon D800E (7360 x 4912 px)
See screenshots of settings. Any Suggestions?

Answer 1

What I find frustrating is:
1. Raw previews look like crap compared to the file itself.
2. Its possible to generate decent previews by a complicated purging-process.
I can imagine you are frustrated.
There are two differences on my set up so I can't check, first I use a Mac and you are on Windows and I use Canon and you Nikon.
However it should not result in this much visible flaws in the preview.
There can be a lot of cache files but Camera Raw Cache is something completely different then Bridge Cache.
Camera Raw is a .dat file and contains some info from the raw settings and probably other stuff that I can't find, it states being a video file but you can't play them.
Bridge cache are jpeg files that you can view, even without Bridge, for example they can be opened in PS itself without problems.
If you have set to build all at 100% then it will generate jpeg files in the original size at a high quality jpeg setting.
As said, I have a Mac but Yammer or Curt can provide you with the correct path to find the Bridge Cache folder yourself.
On my System this is in the user Library / caches/ Adobe/ Bridge CS6 and inhere is a folder called cache. This folder contains 4 folders.
- 256   : contains the thumbnails, very small files (in the range of 10 to 50 kb)
- 1024 : contains the HQ previews, relatively large files (500 KB to 3 MB, depending on the files itself)
- data  : a text file containing all sorts of info, don't know what exactly but is a text file that also can grow to several 100 MB
- Full   : in here are the 100 % previews settled and they can grow to huge proportions ( around 10 MB for 18 MP files, depending on file size and content etc)
If you have set to keep 100 % previews in Bridge prefs this last folder (full) will be taking a lot of space on your disk
If you also have set to export cache to folder it creates same size (hidden) files with this cache in the folder itself.
I never understood the need for export cache to folders for several reasons, first and most important, I had a longstanding bug preventing me from doing so (error message about overwriting a CacheT file) but also each version of Bridge has a different Cache format and you can't read older cache files. Also reading the cache file (especially when on DVD etc) takes a very long time. For purpose of needing to view archived files on external devices you better select the 'Prefer Embedded' option, works faster ten reading earlier exported cache.
Not sure how you did purge the Bridge Cache but in your case I would Quit Bridge and find the equivalent Cache folder on Windows (Yammer, Curt?).
manual delete this Cache folder with all its content and restart Bridge.
This provides you with a new, fresh but very empty cache file. You need to recache the lot for the previews.
If you are not sure just try it for experiment, move the old folder outside the library and try it. If it does not make any difference just Quit and replace the old file