Aquariumnerd wrote: does the photoelectric absorption always result in the release of electromagnetic waves of a different wavelength

You have it backwards. The photoelectric effect is the absorption of a photon by an atom, kicking out an electron, not the release of a photon. As such the absorption cross section rises with the number of electrons in the material the x-ray photons are passing through, ie the atomic number of the element. (The electron will just bounce around depositing its energy as heat (lattice vibrations) until it recombines with another atom).

The absorption cross-section is roughly proportional to atomic_number^4/(photon_energy^3). Since Beryillium is only Z=4, it is the lowest atomic number material that is strong enough to make vacuum chamber windows from.
This datasheet shows even Beryllium absorbs most photons below around 1.5keV
http://www.profluxpolarizer.com/PDF/Windows/Duraberyllium.pdf

If the window was normal glass (silicon dioxide) then the aborption would be much higher, and lead glass would absorb almost all x-rays. Just to be complete, the absorption curves of materials also have spikes where if the energy of the photon is just over the threshold to kick out one of the inner electons from an atom the probability of absorption goes up, these are known as the K,L & M edges corressponding to the energy of the first three atomic shells of an atom.