Photo shadow output to printer

[mathoga]

Hi. I am looking for a bit of confirmation. I have a big retouching job in which i have to silouette about 40 images. All of them need custom shadows using the original photo shadows as reference. I am now looking at how the last guy did it (who was a more advanced retoucher than me). He siloed all the photos and created a clipping path around the image (not including the shadow) and then saved the image as an eps (with the shadow). In other words, the final EPS, which went to the printer, has an image on white with a shadow and a path around just the image. Why would this be? Would it not make sense to put a path around the shadow as well? Any insight would be appreciated.
mattg

[Steve Rindsberg]

If I understand you correctly, I don't think you'd want the original shadow included in the image you silhouette. Suppose your original object's sitting on sand and you want the final one to sit on a wood table top.

I'm guessing that the other retoucher used the original image plus a shadow generated from the same clipping path so that it sits naturally atop whatever background you choose.

Wish I remembered enough PShop to explain this better, but hoping this helps.