A new numerical technique to compensate for the dynamical effects in experimental x-ray intensity profiles is proposed and implemented to enhance the crystal-lattice strain determination algorithm which is applicable to x-ray diffraction data collected from nearly perfect crystals. A practical procedure for the preliminary treatment of experimental data exhibiting dynamical features was tested using three sets of data representing different cases of near-surface distorted layers. It is shown that the influence of the substrate peak on the overall diffraction pattern can be removed by an iterative modification of the very vicinity of the Bragg region in experimental intensity profile. ©1997 American Institute of Physics.