@mitu thanks so much for pointing me in the right direction. Wouldn’t have been able to figure this out without you.
Going to es_log.txt showed that ES was still trying to read images from the default directory
home/pi/.emulationstation/slideshow/imageOne key difference that I discovered was that for some reason the ES GUI was displaying this pathway as
home/pi/.emulationstation/slideshow/imagesThe extra “s” on the end was responsible for the custom directory that I generated not being read.
(I had to build the pathway because it didn’t already exist.)
cd /home/pi/.emulationstationThen
mkdir slideshow cd slideshow mkdir imageThe “s” I had originally put on the “image” folder was why why ES couldn’t find the right directory.
After fixing the spelling, I symbolically linked the image directories that I wanted into the custom directory.
ln -s /some/file/ -t /home/pi/.emulationstation/slideshow/imageBoom. Fixed.
My slideshows now feature all of the scraped images and screenshots I have from my games.