A magnetic resonance (MR) imaging system including a method and apparatus for reducing image artifacts caused by magnet vibration is disclosed herein. The system includes a magnetic field vibration quantification and compensation scheme including correcting for a vibration error induced in k-space data corresponding to an MR image. The vibration error can be at least one of a spatially independent phase error caused by a spatially invariant magnetic field, a k.sub.x -space displacement error caused by a perturbation gradient along the readout direction, a k.sub.y -space displacement error caused by a perturbation gradient along the phase-encoding direction, and a slice-selection error caused by a perturbation gradient along the slice-selection direction. The vibration error is used to appropriately modify and/or add to its corresponding magnetic field component, or its equivalent, in the pulse sequence.