Restore as new phone option???

I've had an on going problem with my photo's app on my iPhone syncing to iPhoto. At this point the photo app does not even work. I will tap the photo icon and the app starts to run and then crashes. I've tried to restore the phone, but I'm convinced the restore image has some sort of corrupted information in it related to photo's.

I've got all my contacts, songs, etc. backed up on my MBP. But before I try to restore as new phone, I want to make sure I'm not going to screw up the phone completely or have the re-activation process think it's a completely new phone. Anyone done a complete iPhone restore as a new phone? Or any way to restore the iPhone without it immediately try to pull the last sync image?

I'm current on my updates for iPhoto, iTunes, and Leopard. Thanks!