As far as getting the color selection back, I think of two options, assuming I understand your question correctly.
Option 1: Open up the hypershade. Select the meterial and and click on the button on the hypershade menu bar that looks like a box with an arrow going in and out of the box. That will show you the input and output connections to the material. You should then be able to delete the file node (probably left of the material). Or you can click on the line connecting the file node to the material node and then hit delete.
Option 2: Assign a new material.
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