Accidentally emptied trash with my photo library in it....help!

I don't even know why my entire photo library was in the trash but I emptied it & they are gone.
I downloaded data recovery but it has found 100,000 photos. Most aren't even my photos......facebook profile pics of my friends, random pics, what the heck?!
My question is this.....I have only about 100-150 photos I need back. How do I sift through all these photos to find them? They all came from my Canon camera; would they be labeled different than others?
Maybe this is a long shot but any help would be awesome! I also don't understand the time machine. Mine is turned off and I think I need it on for screw ups like this.
Thanks so much
Erica

If you have a current Time Machine back up of your system, you can try to restore from that.
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11103
http://support.apple.com/kb/VI29
Also read thru this by Pondini, he is the resident TM guru here:
lhttp://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
Hope this helps

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So what are you guys doing to manage your photos until the OSX Photos app come out? Just not using iCloud Photo Library at all I assume?
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Hello Old Toad:
Thank you for your suggestion. I've seen it in other discussions.
I've been using iPhoto for many years. I've been using a 2 GHz Intel Core Duo 2007 era iMac the whole time. I'm now using iPhoto v8.1.2.
My iPhoto library is now quite large with about 40,000 photos and about 175 G in total size. I have put a lot of time into organizing the photos. Everything is religiously backed up.
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So I started researching this to see if others have the problem. As best I can make out after a few hours of research is that my library is too large and my computer too old. I don't want to replace my computer becuase of iPhoto so I started researching the idea of splitting my library into smaller libraries.
I found several 3rd party programs (iPhoto Buddy, iPhoto Library Manager) that made it seem they may be able to help me easily split my library into several libraries. Unfortunately neither actually does this but instead tells you how you need to do that manually.
The methods to split your library manually they suggest are horrendously tedious for a 40,000 photo library with over 1,000 carefully constructed Events.
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1. The performance of their software declines with no warning to the point where it can't be used unless you're unemployed and have nothing else to do.
2. You look for a fix and find you have to split your library.
3. When you try to split your library you find it will takes days and days of tedious work to complete.
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Have I missed anything or am I doomed to this dreary work?
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Unable to empty trash with data from Time Machine Drive

Hi there,
Cause of the current issue:
I am hoping the experts can help me with this one. I have an external hard drive which is used for my Time Machine Backups. Recently there has been an error on the backup to this drive on occasion. This error only occurs when the system does the back up, and appears only periodically, never when I do the back up manually. One of the threads I read to solve this issue is to delete some older backup files from your time machine drive, and all is good. This worked for awhile.... but now a new problem:
New Problem:
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Macintosh HD
+-Users
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What I have tried:
1. I have tried to empty the trash Securely. No good.
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Hey thanks for the help anyway VK.
I tried that command and no go either.
Last login: Fri Jul 25 08:13:39 on console
iMac:~ tmlohnes$ sudo rm -rf /Volumes/Time\ Machine\ Backups/.Trashes/501/*
Password:
rm: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Trashes/501/2008-03-28-160634/Macintosh HD/Users/tmlohnes/Library/8xMlmPGUHzilET: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Trashes/501/2008-03-28-160634/Macintosh HD/Users/tmlohnes/Library: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Trashes/501/2008-03-28-160634/Macintosh HD/Users/tmlohnes: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Trashes/501/2008-03-28-160634/Macintosh HD/Users: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Trashes/501/2008-03-28-160634/Macintosh HD: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Trashes/501/2008-03-28-160634: Directory not empty
iMac:~ tmlohnes$
I am wondering, would it make sense to try this same command if I were to do a safe boot?
What about formatting the external hard drive and starting fresh?

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I'm not sure I understand this bit:
If you're on Leopard 10.5.x, be sure you have the "action" or "gear" icon in your Finder's toolbar (Finder > View > Customize Toolbar). If there's no toolbar, click the lozenge at the upper-right of the Finder window's title bar. If the "gear" icon isn’t in the toolbar, selectView > Customize Toolbar from the menubar.
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Clinton

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I enabled the "Icloud Photo Library" (beta) just now, and I have lots and lots of photos in "photos" in Iphoto.
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Thanks you!

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iCloud Photo Library is currently only for iOS devices, but it disables syncing with the Mac. It is simply not yet ready.
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Accidentally emptied trash with my photo library in it....help!

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