An method for producing magnetic resonance imaging data is disclosed. An example embodiment of the method includes acquiring a series of M images at a plurality of echo times using a multi-echo pulse sequence. A compensation gradient is added as a blipped gradient in the slice direction before the first image acquisition and between each subsequent image acquisitions to compensate for static magnetic field inhomogeneities. The method also includes repeating the step of acquiring the series of M images N times. The compensation gradient is set to a predetermined value for each acquisition. The method further includes combining the N acquired images for each of the M echo times to obtain M corrected images, computing a map of T.sub.2* values from the M corrected images, and storing data representing the N acquired images and the M corrected images. Systems and computer readable media for implementing the method are also disclosed.