How to Prevent Bubbles & Wrinkles After Laminating: 5 Pro Tips (2025 Guide for Home & Business)

Efficiency matters—especially when you’ve spent hours laminating family photos, designing classroom posters, or prepping bulk documents for your print shop—only to end up with crinkled film or bubbly messes that ruin your work. It’s frustrating: all that time wasted, just because of a few avoidable mistakes. If you’ve ever thought, “Why do bubbles/wrinkles keep happening, even when I follow the basics?”, you’re not alone. We’re breaking down the root causes—and sharing 5 pro tips (including a cheap DIY hack) to fix it for good.

Major Reasons of Bubble in Laminating films

Bubbles—those annoying pockets of air trapped between the laminating pouches and the material being laminated—usually stem from issues with adhesion or preparation. Here are the main culprits:

1. Dust, hair, fingerprints, or oil stains on the surface of the item hinder the tight adhesion between the clear laminating film and the item, allowing air to be easily trapped in between, resulting in bubbles.

2. If the paper, photos, or other items to be laminated contain moisture, the moisture will evaporate into gas when heated during lamination, forming bubbles inside the film.

4. Inferior laminating films have unevenly distributed adhesive layers or insufficiently sticky adhesive layers, making it difficult for them to adhere evenly to the surface of the item during lamination, which easily leads to bubbles.

5. When placing the item to be laminated during operation, if it is not aligned with the laminating film, or the item itself has wrinkles, air will be trapped during the lamination process, forming bubbles.

So what we should do to prevent Bubbles and Wrinkle?

1.Clean the item with dry tissue or Towel before laminating:Ensure it’s completely dry before laminating—avoid laminating damp items like recently printed photos.

2.Adjust Temperature and Speed: Check the laminator’s instructions for recommended settings based on your film’s thickness. Test with a scrap piece of paper first to find the right balance—start with the manufacturer’s guidelines and tweak as needed.

3.Use Quality laminating Film: Invest in reputable laminating films, and check the expiration date. Store films in a cool, dry place to preserve their adhesive properties.

4.Feed Materials Carefully: Align the document straight with the laminator’s entry, and hold it evenly as you feed it in. Avoid pushing or pulling—let the rollers do the work. For large items, have a helper steady the edges.

 5. Post-Lamination "Slow-Cooling Shaping Rack": Prevent "Cooling Shrinkage Wrinkles"

Some wrinkles occur due to the rapid cooling of laminated materials and the different shrinkage rates between the film and the paper. For example, when materials are left to cool directly after high-temperature lamination, the film shrinks faster, leading to wrinkles. To address this, you can set up a "slow-cooling rack" at the exit of the laminator:

Make a hollow (stand) using wire, then lean the freshly laminated materials against the stand at an angle (avoid stacking). Place a small fan above and set it to the lowest speed to blow room-temperature air over the materials. Let them cool down slowly to room temperature—about 5 minutes in air-conditioned rooms (22-25°C) or 10 minutes in humid/warm environments (above 28°C). For print shops handling 50+ documents at once, add 2-3 extra fans (low speed) to keep air circulating and avoid stacking.

Advantages: It costs very little but solves the hidden problem of "post-cooling wrinkles". It is especially suitable for thick laminating films or use in low-temperature environments.

6. For Bulk Laminating (Print Shops/Businesses): Use a “Pre-Feed Alignment Tray”
If you’re laminating 20+ documents at once, misalignment during feeding causes most wrinkles. Install a removable pre-feed tray (you can DIY it with acrylic sheets) at the laminator entrance—mark guide lines for A4/A3 sizes, and add a small roller at the tray’s end to smooth materials before they enter the machine. For special materials (like matte paper or PVC film), spray a tiny amount of anti-static spray (non-residue, e.g., 3M Anti-Static Spray) on the tray to prevent film sticking—this cuts down on misfeeds by 60%.

Always test with a scrap piece of the same material first—this saves you from ruining important documents! Have you tried any of these tips? Or do you have a go-to hack for fixing laminating bubbles? Share it in the comments below—we love learning from your experience.

By addressing these common (and often overlooked) issues, you’ll get smooth, professional results every time—whether you’re laminating a family photo or 100 business flyers.