Carter, the world number 15, pulled a frameback just before the interval to make it 3-1, but gifted his opponent too many opportunities to win another.
But O'Sullivan responded with the first century of the match, and after Maguire had grabbed another frameback with a run of 57, the favourite roared to victory with another fluent display of potting.
Mr Vlahos's breakthrough was to create a complicated laboratory process which involved separating the blue, green and red parts of each frame before combining them back together in a certain order.