  We calculate the photon production cross section arising from the hard
scattering of partons in nucleon-nucleon collisions by taking into account the
intrinsic parton transverse momentum distribution and the next-to-leading-order
contributions. As first pointed out by Owens, the inclusion of the intrinsic
transverse momentum distribution of partons leads to an enhancement of photon
production cross section in the region of photon transverse momenta of a few
GeV/c for nucleon-nucleon collisions at a center-of-mass energy of a few tens
of GeV. The enhancement increases as $\sqrt{s}$ decreases. Such an enhancement
is an important consideration in the region of photon momenta under
investigation in high-energy heavy-ion collisions.
