1. A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system for effecting MR imaging with reduced distortion, said MRI system comprising: an MRI gantry including a static magnetic field coil, gradient magnetic field coils, at least one radio frequency (RF) coil configured to receive nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) RF signals from an object located in the imaging volume; an MRI sequence controller configured to perform an MR imaging sequence comprising at least one or more prescans and at least one main scan of the object; and at least one digital data processor coupled to receive digital data responsive to the MR imaging sequence from said at least one RF coil, said at least one digital data processor being configured to: generate one or more image reconstruction maps from one or more received prescan digital datasets; acquire at least one main scan dataset from received main scan digital data; warp the one or more image reconstruction maps to include geometric distortions substantially corresponding to geometric distortions in the at least one main scan dataset; form a diagnostic MR image of the object using the at least one main scan dataset and the warped one or more image reconstruction maps; and output the diagnostic MR image to a display, or data storage in a non-transient digital data storage medium, or an outbound data transmission port.