Magnetic resonance tagging is used to quantify and visualize myocardial motion. The lack of tag persistence, however, is often a problem in visualizing motion throughout the cardiac cycle, particularly in late diastole. Complementary spatial modulation of magnetization (CSPAMM) improves tag persistence, but requires complex signal subtraction, which is not available on all scanners. This paper analyzes the contrast to noise properties of a new method called magnitude image CSPAMM reconstruction (MICSR), which requires only magnitude images from the scanner and demonstrates improved contrast and tag persistence over CSPAMM. A novel "trinary checkerboard" display of myocardial motion, ideally matched to the contrast to noise properties of MICSR, is also presented.