Would you like fries with that?

Split-screen comparison of a store-bought McDonald's Quarter Pounder and
one constructed from the same ingredients in a photo studio.

Ever wonder why that McDonald's quarter-pounder you buy never looks quite the same as a quarter-pounder in a McDonald's ad?

From the L.A. Times:

That McDonald’s burger from your neighborhood drive-thru is never quite as luscious-looking as its juicy, dripping, not-quite-doppelganger in advertisements.

Now customers can see why in a new behind-the-scenes video produced by the fast-food giant.

Hope Bagozzi, director of marketing for McDonald’s Canada, walks viewers through the studio magic used over several hours to plump and primp a Golden Arches burger to its mouthwatering max.

First, Bagozzi picks up a Quarter Pounder with cheese -- likely made within 60 seconds -- from a street-side McDonald’s for comparison. The “steam effect” from the box “makes the bun contract a bit,” she said.

Then Bagozzi heads to the Watt International photo studio, where the same ingredients are being used to carefully craft a similar burger from scratch.

Then food stylists and photographers labor over the sandwich, melting down the cheese with a warmed knife, strategically applying mustard and ketchup with a syringe, slanting the bun to highlight the ingredients.

“It’s like you’re a surgeon in there,” Bagozzi says at one point.