A method of selecting a portion of k-space data for acquisition in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of a body, the body having a target therein. The method includes defining the target in real space, translating the defined target into a k-space representation thereof and selecting the region corresponding to the k-space representation of the target for data acquisition during the MRI scan, wherein the MRI scan is substantially limited to acquisition of the selected region. In addition, this method may include the target having an orientation relative to the principal axis of the MRI scan and the target defining step includes defining the target in terms of target length "L.sub.R", target width "W.sub.R", and target angular orientation ".theta..sub.R" relative to the MRI scan principal axis and the translating step may include converting L.sub.R, W.sub.R, and .theta..sub.R to their k-space representations L.sub.K, W.sub.K, and .theta..sub.K.