My friend upgraded to a new phone, but it has less space than the old one My friend isn't very technology literate, so I backed up his phone to my computer for him. The problem is, his new phone doesn't have as much space, so I can't load up the back up on there.

Is there a way to extract at least the photos and contacts from the back up?

Thanks in advance!
Mac or PC?

Because if you Sync'ed the phone with your computer it most likely copied the pictures to your My Pictures folder (PC) or into iPhoto (Mac). If you didn't sync the phone but just performed a backup then you will need one of the many utilities that let you browse/extract data from the backup.

I have not futzed with such a utility in many years I hear that iExplorer is a decent product. 

It should allow you to do just what you want on a Mac or a PC.