Digital watermarking is a technique employed to embed secret or copyright information into digital media, such as images, audio, and video, in order to protect the intellectual property and integrity of the content. This paper presents a secure and optimized image watermarking method using advanced algorithms for embedding and extraction processes. The proposed technique integrates a combination of discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and a genetic algorithm (GA) to optimize the watermark embedding process. The method ensures robustness against common image manipulations like compression, noise addition, and cropping. Security of the watermark is enhanced through encryption and key management. Experimental results show that the proposed watermarking method achieves a high level of imperceptibility and robustness, while providing effective protection for sensitive image content..