Hi @Gwen,
Thank you for your question.
Awesome great to see you got that solved.
I’d ultimately like my slide images to not post to the blog as well.
You can exclude slider posts appearing anywhere on the site by developing custom code as developed here https://colorlibsupport.com/t/suppress-slider-on-posts-page/#post-24989 https://colorlibsupport.com/t/exclude-slider-category-on-home-page-and-post-page/
Also you can use pages for the slider instead of posts by developing solution as described here https://colorlibsupport.com/t/slider-for-pages/#post-33351
Best Regards,
Movin