Systems and methods for processing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data are provided. A method includes receiving MRI data comprising a plurality of k-space points and deriving a plurality of image data sets based on the MRI data, each of the plurality of MRI image sets obtained by zeroing a different one of the plurality of k-space points. The method further includes computing image space metric values for each of the plurality of image data sets and adjusting a portion of the MRI data associated with ones of the image space metric values that fail to meet a threshold value to yield adjusted MRI data.