Illustrator file compatibility

Hi   I'm new to Adobe Illustrator CS6 and finding it really good to use. I have come up against a problem though. I find that when I open up my file in Photoshop CS6 to airbrush part of the front cover design for my book I then loose all capability to edit the file when I go back into Illustrator. There is no airbrush in Illustrator CS6 so I have to do this. Also I need to preserve editing capability because I will not know the spine width for the front cover of my book until it has been printers have printed it. Am I doing something wrong?

Depending on what you are actuall airbrushing, you could remove all objects you don't want to touch in your illustrator file, and save it as a new document. Open this file in photoshop, making sure you crop to artbox in the open file dialog box, and complete your edits on the raster file, and save as psd. Re-open your original working .ai file again then go to file>place, and place your airbrushed .psd file on top of your other artwork. It's not an ideal solution but a possible work around. Of course it depends on what else you want to do to the airbrushed area once you've placed back in illustrator.

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