I'm a graphics programmer. I'm here to address what is causing the "washed out" look with TW3 Remastered, and how it can be fixed (on PC at least), because I'm tired of the fighting and misinformation in this sub.
As the title says, I'm a graphics programmer. I'm currently working on a custom game engine, a project which was heavily inspired by REDengine, amongst others.
I'm posting this to clear up a bunch of misconceptions, because I'm tired of all the infighting and misinformation going around this sub right now.
Yes, there are genuine graphical issues in TW3 Remastered. No, they do not appear to affect every setup, and no it is almost certainly not a "new art direction". Just because you personally are not affected, or have found some bandaid fix, doesn't make these issues any less real, or any less frustrating for those who're experiencing them. It's also not user error, which is a ridiculous accusation that I've been seeing far too regularly.
Now, on to the details.
Tonemapping
The biggest contributor to the washed-out look right now is related to tonemapping. In very simple terms, the tonemapper is responsible for taking the renderer's internal lighting data and mapping it into the actual colors you see on your screen.
Tonemapping affects literally everything - brightness, contrast, saturation, highlights, shadows, and colors. You can imagine how important this is, and how this could easily cause the issues that people are seeing.
The Remastered version uses a new tonemapping curve (AgX), which is a bit different from the Hable curve used in Next Gen. AgX is more "photorealistic" than Hable, but it should absolutely NOT be washed-out like this. What you're seeing here is a bug, not likely in the tonemapper itself, but in the light levels being fed into it.
In the attached images, you can see the difference. The first image is the vanilla Remastered, the second image is with black level fixes applied. Both images use the same game save, graphics settings, location, weather, and time of day. The only thing that has changed is the black levels in the environment data.
Bloom
Bloom was (for some people) also contributing to the washed out look. Bloom is applied before tonemapping, and so it can exacerbate issues there. The 5.00c patch released today claims to have shipped some bloom fixes, so you might be able to re-enable it at this point.
Disabling bloom didn't make much difference on my setup, but YMMV.
Ambient Occlusion
GTAO is apparently also broken for some people. Again, this effect is applied before tonemapping and, when broken, can contribute to the washed out look by making things more brightly lit than they should be. This affects everything, but is especially noticeable on foliage.
Again, you can see the difference clearly in attached images. The third image is with AO disabled (to simulate broken). The fourth image is with the old HBAO+ method from Next Gen applied to the Remaster. Again, the game save, graphics settings, location, weather, and time of day are all exactly the same. The only change is the Ambient Occlusion.
Personally, I don't seem to have any GTAO issues as of 5.00c, it pretty much looks the same as HBAO+ for me. I didn't see any direct mention of it in the patch notes, but they did mention fixing "vegetation lighting", which could be related.
Compounding the issues
If you're unlucky enough to experience all three of these issues together, then the result is going to be a game that looks pretty awful, and is almost certainly not what the developers intended.
Again, you may not be personally affected by these issues. I'm seeing many screenshots where none of these issues appear to be present, and the game looks great. Good for you, you got lucky. That doesn't make these issues any less real though.
Fixes
The part everyone is undoubtedly waiting for.
How can I fix (or at least improve) this right now, you ask?
Well, I'm going to start by saying that any adjustments to gamma or monitor settings are just bandaid fixes. They're just covering up the problem, and creating new consequences (like crushed blacks), not actually fixing the underlying issues. They're better than nothing, but they're not the genius fixes that many people are pretending they are.
If you're on PC, modders have saved the day, as usual. I can't speak for console players, but I'm guessing y'all are shit outta luck due to the mod approval process slowing things down.
So, for PC players:
If you're affected by the tonemapping issue, you can install the Remastered Washed-Out Look Fix mod, which adjusts the black levels fed into the new AgX tonemapper.
If you're affected by the GTAO issue, you can install the Restore HBAO+ mod, which restores the HBAO+ method used in Next Gen.
Both of these mods have excellent side-by-side comparisons that probably demonstrate the issues more clearly than my attached images do. I strongly suggest having a look, even if you're a console player. They paint a very clear picture.
Are they perfect fixes? Probably not, but they're a significant improvement and certainly better than trying to fix the issue downstream by adjusting gamma or contrast.
Tl;dr
The washed-out graphics that some people are seeing in the Remaster are very real, genuine bugs, as evidenced by their fixes. There's not really any excuse for the Remaster shipping like this, but it's very likely that CDPR or their contractors will fix it all in due time.
Hopefully this post clears things up and settles everyone down a bit.
EDIT: For those of you saying you can't see a difference in the images, that's probably because of Reddit's stupid animations that are enabled by default.
In Reddit, go to Settings >> Preferences, and under Accessibility you want to enable the Reduce Motion option. That'll disable the animations and make it easier to see the difference.
Alternatively, look at the mod pages I linked. They have very clear side-by-side comparisons.