Rick Brown has given a very full answer to the question posed by Robert
Covington.  I would just like to add a small point in case it would be
helpful.
When I was trying to save a PICT picture whose colours I had changed and
posted a query to the mailing list early in April, Robert Purves made me
aware of USR GETPICT, which returned a handle to the changed PICT.  I
don't know whether this is relevant to Robert Covington's problem.
Vic Maslen