deleted files

I'm not sure exactly what happened, I know next to nothing about these things. I emptied my trash today, and now my entire iphoto library is gone. I think I was deleting some pictures in my pictures folder and ended up including the library in the group. Is this hopeless or is there some way to retrieve these photos? Thank you

There is. I use TechTool Pro (which is a pricey package, but it's saved me a couple times), so I don't know of any cheap/free tools. If you have AppleCare you should get TechTool Deluxe (which I imagine is a very similar, although less feature full suite).