A method for reducing distortion in magnetic resonance (MR) images of a subject employs distortion compensating MR pulses in a conventional MR imaging sequence. The distortion compensating pulses are determined by first creating a conventional MR image of a slice of a subject having inherent distortions; constructing a target slice which is distorted in a manner opposite the direction of distortions in the slice image; taking a multi-dimensional Fourier transformation of the target slice to obtain a k-space region; choosing a continuous trajectory which efficiently traverses the k-space region; applying principles of multidimensional selective-excitation design to create simultaneous RF pulses and magnetic field gradient waveforms from the trajectory; and simultaneously applying the RF pulses and gradient waveforms in place of a traditional slice-select pulse in conventional MR imaging sequences to obtain images having reduced distortion as compared with conventional images.