- McDonald’s uploaded unretouched photos of food to its website alongside retouched photos — and the difference, in some cases, is shocking.
- The fast-food chain made tweaks like beefing up meat, smoothing out imperfections, and correcting colors.
- Customers have long criticized McDonald’s for serving menu items that don’t match its advertising.
For years, customers have complained that McDonald’s food doesn’t match its advertising — and one reason for the discrepancy is hiding in plain sight.
If you look at the details of many of the photos on McDonald’s website, there is a layer called “retouched.” Turning the layer on and off reveals what the already stylized menu items looked like in the photo shoot and what they look like after a round of editing.
McDonald’s has previously gotten in hot water for advertising items that don’t look like what’s on the menu. In 2012, McDonald’s Canada let a video crew record the hours of work that goes into a McDonald’s photo shoot dedicated to making the food look good.
Even after the burgers are beautified, however, it seems there is another round of corrections to be made — and McDonald’s includes the fixes on its website.
McDonald’s didn’t immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
Here are the captivating differences between original and retouched photos on McDonald's site:
If you look closely at downloaded McDonald's photos, you can see the "retouched" layer.
The iconic Big Mac required some retouching efforts.
The sausage biscuit is one of the most shocking transformations. It takes five rounds of fixes to take the biscuit from looking squashed to standing tall.
The humble cheeseburger required some tweaks.
The cheeseburger patty required some filling in, and the sheen on the slice of cheese was enhanced. Here's the before shot ...
... and the retouched burger.
The Egg McMuffin's bun needed some corrections.
McDonald's apparently decided the baked apple pie needed to look more stackable.
Beverages — like the almost gray McCafé drink — weren't exempt from editing.
Fruit and vegetables, like apple slices, were also retouched.
All minor imperfections were removed from the fruit. Here's the before ...
... and here's the slice after retouching.
