In this paper, we examine and investigate the effects of noise-induced transmission errors on the performance of image transmission over cooperative relay networks with various error-correction capabilities. MAP decoder is used to decode the data sent across the cooperative network. First, the relationships between lengths of the code, peak signal-to-noise ratio, and signal-to-noise ratio are analyzed. Second, the comparison between the performances of different channel coding is introduced in conjunction with the set partitioning in hierarchical trees algorithm as a source code. The genetic algorithm, as an efficient optimization technique, is applied for solving the problem of optimal unequal error protection method to reduce the transmission rate and to improve the transmitted image quality. Many useful and significant results that are introduced in this paper can be used in the enhancement of image transmission over the cooperative networks. Compared to traditional methods, the suggested method is more practical for the transmission of images with high-quality via smart devices.