Restore an individual iphoto event from a time machine backup in Lion

It depends on what system and iPhoto versions you're using? What are they?

OT

Simply, you don't. You restore the whole Library.

You can go into the iPhtoo library using TM and select a photo in the masters folder and restore it to the desktop - then import it into iPhoto

LN

If you know the file names of the photos you want to restore you can use Find Any File to search your Time Machine hard drive for that file. When it is found you can drag it from the search window to the Desktop and import into iPhoto from there.

Due to the nature of the Time Machine backup structure each search can take a while. The search results window will look like this:

Thank you. One more thing. Where do I find the master, vs. the photo library? Also, do I just drag and drop to the desktop? I don't want to overwrite my current library.

This is the first time I've attempted to bring something back. Have full backups, had to let apple store wipe my hard drive for diagnostic & now I'm attempting to find about 15,000 photographs that were divided between iPhoto and aperture.

You must Control (right) - click on the library package and select Show Package Contents to get to the Masters folder.

When you get to the photo you want to restore Control (right) - click on it and use the Restore XXXX to... menu option to save it to the Desktop.