We were fortunate to only do character meals on park days, so this wasn't an issue for us. I do see it as a hole in the current Photopass program and am curious what the answer is. It's not like you can buy MaxPass for the day if you aren't using a ticket or scanning into the park.
When they came around to our table last week, the only option they described was buying the prints for something like $37 which was crazy. I do believe that you get the prints plus the code to download when you purchase. We had already purchased MaxPass so they gave us the code when we logged into the app and showed that we had it for the day.
If you think you might purchase the prints in spite of the cost, be sure to ask for a number of shots out front (whole family, just kids, etc) because the download will include everything shot.