Did you use a specific guide? I’d like to try again and follow the exact same steps as you.

actually yeah, I didn't know takeout was a thing initially. Here is the site I found that sent me there - https://www.groovypost.com/howto/migrate-google-photos-amazo...

Now, when I was just browsing the zips, it was folder after folder of junk I didn't even recognize, I guess metadata files of some sort. Rather than do all that, at least in Gnome, when I unzip it has an option of 'preserve directory structure' that I unchecked, which basically gets rid of all the folders. From there I was easily able to mass remove all the json and other non-photo files, leaving only the photos behind. Good luck.