Don't get yourself tied up in a knot over this question. It's a lot simpler than that. An image HAS no color without light from somewhere. The color you see when you look at the image is the color of the light coming from the image to your eye. It may be light from somewhere else, that shined on the object and bounced off from there o your eye. Or it may be light that the image somehow generated by itself. Either way, the colors you see in the image are the colors of the light coming from the image. Without light either pouring out of the image or bouncing off of the image, you see nothing.
