Methods of processing MRI image data to reduce or eliminate motion-related artifacts in MRI images includes: electronically repeatedly acquiring sets of 2D or 3D k-space data of a target region of a subject using at least one MRI pulse sequence; electronically applying a bootstrapping procedure to produce a large number of images from the acquired k-space data; then electronically evaluating the images produced by the bootstrapping procedure; and electronically identifying an image with a minimal motion-related artifact level from the evaluation of the images produced by the bootstrapping procedure.