Why does the sheen of a finish affect the appearance of a color? Do the wavelengths of color get magnified, refracted, or intensified as the pass through the layers of a paint film?
The overall perception depends on both the diffuse reflectance of the material (what we often call color) and the surface properties (sheen or gloss, which is not colored). For a glossy material, all that surface reflection goes off in one direction and we can then see the nice saturated, or dark, color of the underlying material. As the material becomes more matte, more of that surface reflection is scattered in all directions and that results in the material looking lighter and less saturated no matter how it is viewed. Consider a black car and a white car both with equal levels of sheen on the final finish. The black car appears to be more shiny. Here, the sheen of the white is masked by all the diffuse reflection that makes the material look white. In the black material since there is really only surface reflection (the sheen), it is very apparent. Generally for normal materials, there is no effect on the wavelength composition of the light.
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