CompuServe Messages

On May 10, as everyone will remember, there was an annular eclipse of the sun. The path of annularity went through Toronto where I live so my wife and I took the day off in the hope of photographing this once in a lifetime event. To avoid eye damage, we tracked the progress with a pin-hole camera and used a page behind the viewer to indicate when the camera was properly aimed. I thought that exposure could be done using the "auto" setting on her little Ricoh. In that lay the misfortune. The pictures were over-exposed. The "ring of fire" became the circle of fire. The sun on our slides looks like every day Sol! However, there is SOME contrast there and I had an idea which prompts me to post this message. Can one do the following?: Digitize the picture to get an IFF image. Use a paint program (or write a little C-utility) to fill in the centre of what should have been the dark area pixel by pixel. Prepare new slides of the result. If the Amiga is ever used for such computer enhancement, this surely would be a classic application. These pictures threatened never to be taken at all as the sun flirted with cloud cover throughout the eclipse period. In fact, a really dramatic picture could have resulted: the "ring of fire" right next to a billowing thunderhead. So you see my dilemma. Instead of a great picture, I have a lousy one which might be rescueable. I am confident that I can perform the IFF image enhancement stage. My question is two fold: Does the equipment to go from analog slide to IFF and back exist and if so, what is it called? If such exists, is there such a commercial venture as a digitizing service whom one could get to do the hardware part of this for a fee? One suspects that such equipment would be too expensive to unless one is doing more that touching up the occasional picture.? Any ideas anyone can give would be much appreciated. Cheers! Tom Stevens