Femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy (FSRS) is a promising multiple-pulse ultrafast spectroscopic tool whose simplest form utilizes an actinic pump, a Raman pump and a continuum probe. Here, we report that the transient absorption generated by the actinic pulse modulates the overall magnitude of the Raman signals of the photoactivated sample. As a consequence, the traditional transient FSRS signal is distorted by artifacts, which were observed in the past but left without interpretation. We propose a simple model to calculate the correct transient FSRS signals from the knowledge of transient absorption signal. The model was verified by application to experimental data. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.