The image() function allows an author to easily generate a solid-color image from any color. Its syntax is: image() = image( <color> )
CSS has long needed a primitive way to express a transparent image: an <image> value with no intrinsic dimensions that paints nothing. Authors today reach for awkward workarounds like linear-gradient(transparent) to fabricate one, because the none keyword cannot be used as a generic image. Many properties that accept <image> also accept none with property-specific meaning (for example, in list-style-image, none suppresses the marker rather than drawing a transparent image), and none is not a valid <image> for registered custom properties using syntax: "<image>". The CSS Working Group has confirmed that promoting none to a general image type is unworkable. This gap became concrete in the design of light-dark() from CSS Color 5. The specification allowed light-dark(none, none) and described it as equivalent to linear-gradient(transparent), but that definition does not round-trip: when the chosen value is none, the result needs a real <image> representation that is valid everywhere <image> is accepted, including inside registered custom properties and in contexts like list-style-image where the bare keyword none carries a different meaning. Without a dedicated image primitive, implementations were forced either to refuse none inside light-dark() (as Firefox originally did) or to special-case it in ways that leak through computed values. The CSS image() function, already specified in CSS Images Level 4, provides exactly the needed primitive. In particular, image(<color>) produces an image with no natural dimensions filled with a solid color, and image(transparent) is a fully transparent image that is unambiguously an <image> value in every context. The CSS WG resolved that light-dark(..., none) computes to image(transparent) when none is the chosen branch, which both fixes the round-trip problem and gives authors a clear, intuitive way to spell "a transparent image" without abusing gradient syntax. Shipping image() (initially scoped to its <color> form, since the broader features of image() can be deferred) therefore unblocks light-dark(), supports registered <image> custom properties that need a transparent initial value, replaces the common linear-gradient(transparent) idiom with a direct and self-documenting expression, and lays the groundwork for the remaining capabilities of image() in CSS Images 4.