.gif image becomes black and white (against my wishes)

My program is put together from a few online tutorials because I'm new to working with images. It displays the image I expected it to, but it's black and white (took me a while to recognize it!)

Since the code is big, I'm only posting what I think is relevant.
Code Java:
public class Board extends JPanel implements ActionListener {
 
	public MovableObject[] movables; 
 
	public Board(){
		movables = new MovableObject[MAX_MOVABLE_OBJECTS];
		movables[0] = new MovableObject(0);  // (0) - player character;
	}
 
public void paint(Graphics g) {
		super.paint(g);
		Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) g;
 
		g2d.drawImage(movables[0].getImage(), movables[0].getX(), movables[0].getY(), null);  
	}
 
 
public class MovableObject {
 
	BufferedImage still;
	AnimatedSprite sprite;
 
	public MovableObject(int spriteRefNum) {
 
		sprite = sprites[spriteRefNum];
		still = sprite.getCurrentImage();
	}
 
	public Image getImage() {
		return still;
	 }
}
 
 
static public AnimatedSprite[] sprites = new AnimatedSprite[MAX_SPRITES_GLOBAL]; 
 
 
public class AnimatedSprite {
 
	private double x; // upper left coordinates of the sprite
	private double y;
	private double lastX; // the coordinates the sprite was at the previous frame
	private double lastY;
 
 
	private HashMap<String, int[]> frames;
 
	private BufferedImage[] images; // all the images of this AnimatedSprite
 
	private String currentAnim;  // the current 'state' or animation that the sprite is in
 
	private int currentFrame;
 
	private int[] currentFrameSet;  // current set of frames being used
 
	public AnimatedSprite(BufferedImage[] images) {  // class constructor
		this.images = images;
		frames = new HashMap<String, int[]>();
	}
 
	public void addNewAnimation(String name, int[] set) {
		frames.put(name, set);
		setAnimation(name);
	}
 
	public void setAnimation(String name) {  // Sets the current animation of the Sprite
		if(frames.containsKey(name)) {
		currentAnim = name;
		currentFrameSet = frames.get(currentAnim);
		currentFrame = 0;
		}
	}
 
	public void setLocation(double x, double y) {  // upper left corner
		this.x = x;
		this.y = y;
	}
 
	// added ************************
	public BufferedImage getCurrentImage() {
		return images[0];
	}
	// *****************************
 
	public int getWidth() {  // Gets the width of one frame
		return images[0].getWidth();
	}
 
	public int getHeight() {  // Gets the height of one frame
		return images[0].getHeight();
	}
}
 
 
public class ImageUtil {
 
	public static BufferedImage loadImage(String ref) {
		BufferedImage bimg = null;
		try {
 
			bimg = ImageIO.read(new File(ref));
		} catch (Exception e) {
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
		return bimg;
	}
 
	 public static BufferedImage[] splitImage(BufferedImage img, int cols, int rows) {
			int w = img.getWidth()/cols;
			int h = img.getHeight()/rows;
			int num = 0;
			BufferedImage imgs[] = new BufferedImage[w*h];
			for(int y = 0; y < rows; y++) {
				for(int x = 0; x < cols; x++) {
					imgs[num] = new BufferedImage(w, h, img.getType());
					// Tell the graphics to draw only one block of the image
					Graphics2D g = imgs[num].createGraphics();
					g.drawImage(img, 0, 0, w, h, w*x, h*y, w*x+w, h*y+h, null);
					g.dispose();
					num++;
				}
			}
			return imgs;
		}
}