Described herein is a method for the automatic selection of elements within at least one radiofrequency coil used for imaging at least one slice of a volume using a magnetic resonance imaging system which includes performing a one-dimensional projection for at least one angle for each element of an initial selection of multiple elements; and using the at least one projection in selecting and/or deselecting at least one element from the group of multiple elements for imaging of the volume. Noise scans can also be utilized to set the receiver channel gain for imaging as part of the method. The elements can also be ranked, commonly using the element's signal to noise ratio, with selection and/or deselection based on the ranking.