A description of heat transport by conduction and radiation in inhomogeneous materials following absorption of a brief optical pulse is presented, and investigated experimentally using pulsed photothermal radiometry (PPTR). The model indicates that the role of radiation as an intramedium heat transfer modality increases with increasing temperatures and decreasing infrared (IR) absorption of the medium. However, for the range of conditions analysed in this study, conductive transfer dominates. Thus, the inclusion of radiation does not significantly perturb the internal temperature profiles, although it does influence the radiometric emission from the sample, and hence the PPTR signal. The thermal confinement effects described in this study may be relevant in photomedicine, for example in pulsed laser irradiation of tissues containing small absorbing targets.