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Tutorial - Unflatten Line Art — Description
I've seen people try to "unflatten" line art by meticulously erasing the white pixels, trying the Magic Wand, or by simply coloring on top of it. The last resort is usually the Multiply trick, which is a little limited in the long run.

After discovering this technique a couple years ago, I wanted to do a little tutorial/tip thing on it. It's not as well known as it could be considering how easy it is to execute :]

I use this method so often that I made a Photoshop Action out of it so it's always just one click away. Sometimes I find that I've accidentally drawn on my line art with white and this is a great way to quickly fix mistakes like that.

This trick should work for most versions of Photoshop -- except Elements, which doesn't have the Channels palette. It can also be done in GIMP, if you're an open source fan .

If people like this one, I've got ideas for a bunch more obscure tips I haven't seen tutorialized often. I'm also using these to practice tutorial layouts for an upcoming coloring tutorial

Edit: Added more explanation to the Channels section.