that's a little tricky to explain, because with carbon fiber the finish is actually the very beginning. The flat shiny surface is a part of the impregnation system.. ewwwww... and is the same resin that is used to stiffen the carbon fiber throughout.
So what happens is they start with a large flat slab of glass, and apply a layer of the resin to the surface, THIS is what becomes the final finish. After that layer is down, the carbon fabric is laid on top, and under a vacuum additional resin is sucked through the lay up replacing all (mostly) the air... well... because the thin initial layer was there first, there is no air to replace and this leaves a dead flat surface. HOW thin it is, is unfortunately impossible to tell as the fabric has varying dimension to it. Little scratches can be taken out with light buffing compound (we use a very fine automotive compound if we need to), but too much buffing will do two things... First is that the surface in not 100% flat, it will have micro air pockets in it (remember i said MOSTLY all the air, as a true 100% vacuum is (near) impossible to achieve on earth. So too much polishing will attack and exacerbate the pockets. The second is that you could polish down too the carbon fiber itself, this would just make the surface dull in that area.... It may look good if the entire surface was all buffed down to fiber itself... Sorry.. this was a little tough to explain, but in short, a quick polish with a fine compound will help it as much as it can, and WILL get rid of slight scratches, but you can go to far...
Now that is cool to know, I did not know resin was involved.
KAS