The cuckoo search algorithm (CS) is a simple and effective global optimization algorithm. It has been applied to solve a wide range of real-world optimization problem. In this paper, an improved Cuckoo Search Algorithm (ICS) is presented for determining the age and relative contribution of different stellar populations in galaxies. The results indicate that the proposed method performs better than, or at least comparable to state-of-the-art method from literature when considering the quality of the solutions obtained. The proposed algorithm will be applied to integrated color of galaxy NGC 3384. Simulation results further demonstrate the proposed method is very effective. The study revealed that cuckoo search can successfully be applied to a wide range of stellar population and space optimization problems.