  Hard, or high transverse momentum, pion photoproduction can be a tool for
probing the parton structure of the beam and target. We estimate the soft
contributions to this process, with an eye toward delineating the region where
perturbatively calculable processes dominate. Our soft process estimate is
based on vector meson dominance and data based parameterizations of
semiexclusive hadronic cross sections. We find that soft processes dominate in
single pion photoproduction somewhat past 2 GeV transverse momentum at a few
times 10 GeV incoming energy. The recent polarization asymmetry data is
consistent with the perturbative asymmetry being diluted by polarization
insensitive soft processes. Determining the polarized gluon distribution using
hard pion photoproduction appears feasible with a few hundred GeV incoming
energy (in the target rest frame).
