Macbook reinstall from backup

[guavafish]

Hi,

I have a yr old macbook (OS X 10.6.8)

I backed in up in Feb and went traveling. Last month after some problems it had to be wiped and the OS reinstalled.

So now I have my hard drive back and want to reinstall all of the backup but not loose the stuff I have got over the last month. If push comes to shove I just want iphoto and my photos back and itunes (without deleting the new stuff I have got)

How do I do this easily and quickly from time machine. I've tried restoring iphoto and copying the user/library/pictures but it won't open iphoto. Google wasn't much help.

(I'm being impatient as I want my macbook restored to its former glory so I can treat it to a Lion upgrade

 

[Kaveman]

The best way is to Migrate your whole old User space back in to its own account, giving it a New User name if required. Then you can sort through and move the stuff you want to keep either an External Drive or into Shared.

There is no way to mash a full backup into a used User Space and have the Mac to magically know what files to keep and what to overwrite.