Creating a program to augment 2D sprite detail: possible?

[isaiahk9]

Hey, I'm working on a computer game with some friends, and I was wondering how/if it would be possible to make a program to increase sprite detail: specifically, I want to add shading/shine effects to sprites (mostly because shading/shining every single position for the characters would take a while).
So basically the program would have to identify separate parts of the sprite: in a character sprite, it may include the pants, the shirt and the helmet. Easy enough: I would just have to use a distinguishable color to seperate the parts of the sprite.
Now it gets tricky: the program will need to identify the shape of each part of the sprite, and analyze the color of said part (assume that all parts would be a single shade, besides the distinctive outline color). Then, using the analysis of the shape, layers of lighter versions of the color below would be placed on top of each other, thus creating lighting. Obviously the user would have the ability to select each part and choose the extent of the shading, and whether or not to include shine.
For language, I was thinking about doing it in Python, but if it impossible with Python, I could use C++, Actionscript, VB or Java.
What do you think? I can see no reason why it would be impossible, but I'm having trouble making the computer figure out the shape of the parts, despite the distinguishing color lining. Any suggestions?