A characterization method of characterizing a serum and plasma portion of a specimen, comprising: capturing one or more images from multiple viewpoints of a specimen container including a serum or plasma portion, wherein the specimen container includes multiple labels thereon obscuring the entire serum or plasma portion, wherein capturing the one or more images from the multiple viewpoints comprises backlighting with light sources comprising one or more spectra of IR, and near !R; processing the one or more images from the multiple viewpoints to provide segmentation data for each of the multiple viewpoints, the segmentation data including identification of a label-containing region and information on the location of the serum or plasma portion, wherein the segmentation data is generated on the serum or plasma portion and the label-containing region; providing a reference label configuration database including reference image data on multiple reference label configurations, wherein the reference label configurations are a multitude of possible label configurations including, one or more labels arranged in different possible configurations that may be actually encountered during imaging; identifying and selecting a closest label match of the label-containing region to a reference label configuration selected from the multiple reference label configurations contained in the reference label configuration database; and generating a combined representation based on the segmentation data and the closest label match, wherein generating a combined representation comprises calculating, on a pixel by pixel basis, a difference between, or a ratio between the label-containing region to the reference label configuration selected from the multiple reference label configurations. capturing one or more images from multiple viewpoints of a specimen container including a serum or plasma portion, wherein the specimen container includes multiple labels thereon obscuring the entire serum or plasma portion, wherein capturing the one or more images from the multiple viewpoints comprises backlighting with light sources comprising one or more spectra of IR, and near !R; processing the one or more images from the multiple viewpoints to provide segmentation data for each of the multiple viewpoints, the segmentation data including identification of a label-containing region and information on the location of the serum or plasma portion, wherein the segmentation data is generated on the serum or plasma portion and the label-containing region; providing a reference label configuration database including reference image data on multiple reference label configurations, wherein the reference label configurations are a multitude of possible label configurations including, one or more labels arranged in different possible configurations that may be actually encountered during imaging; identifying and selecting a closest label match of the label-containing region to a reference label configuration selected from the multiple reference label configurations contained in the reference label configuration database; and generating a combined representation based on the segmentation data and the closest label match, wherein generating a combined representation comprises calculating, on a pixel by pixel basis, a difference between, or a ratio between the label-containing region to the reference label configuration selected from the multiple reference label configurations.