Adam,
it depends on what you want to do. By default the photo is stored as an inline raster field inside the file geodatabase. That is something a shapefile cannot do. So when you uncheck the managed option in the UI then the tool adds a reference/location of the photo on disk but not the image itself. This understanding of where the photo is located can be exported into a shapefile. However at that point you (as the user) need to copy the shapefile and the photos and ensure that the referenced location stays in sync.
- Thomas
