The plots below show the distribution of clusters in the endcap calorimeter for different partonic pT ranges. 2000 events were generated for each pT range. A cluster is made up of a central high tower above 3 GeV in pT and its surounding 8 neighbors. The total cluster pT must exceed 4.5 GeV.
Below is the pT of direct and decay photons from the Pythia record. Note how the two subsets are well separated at a given partonic pT. Any contamination to the direct photon signal would have to come from higher partonic pT.