Imaging techniques play a vital clinical role in patients with heart failure, not only in diagnosis, but also in determining prognosis and evaluating treatment. The more established imaging modalities of echocardiography, nuclear cardiology and computerized tomography, which have been developed in recent years, have been supplemented by nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, a technique that is being rapidly introduced and increasingly used in the field of cardiology. The wide range of imaging techniques available makes it advisable for us to improve our knowledge of their performance, benefits and drawbacks so that we can select the most appropriate techniques for studying this clinical syndrome. This article contains a review of the usefulness of and indications for the different imaging techniques used in managing patients with heart failure.