Image processing is an emerging field and lots of research had been performed for the past few years. Image processing has various techniques which are image segmentation, enhancement, feature extraction, classification, restoration, image generation etc. pattern recognition is an important part of image processing system. The aim of this paper is to study the use of artificial neural network and genetic algorithm in pattern recognition. Artificial neural network helps in training process where as the selection of various parameters for pattern recognition can be done in an optimized way by the genetic algorithm.