Selective population of dressed states has been proposed as an alternative control pathway in molecular reaction dynamics [Wollenhaupt et al., J. Photochem. Photobiol. A: Chem., 2006, 180, 248]. In this article we investigate if, and under which conditions, this strong field pathway is included in the search space of optimal control theory. For our calculations we used the proposed example of the potassium dimer, in which the different target states can be reached via dressed states by resonant transition. Especially, we investigate whether the optimization algorithm is able to find the route involving the dressed states although the target state lies out of resonance in the bare state picture.