The jet quenching effect has been investigated in the direct photon production, based on a realistic data-constrained (3+1)-dimensional hydrodynamic description of the expanding hot and dense matter, a reasonable treatment of the propagation of partons and their energy loss in the fluid and a systematic study of the main sources of direct photons. Our resultant pt spectra agree with recent PHENIX data in a broad pt range. Parton energy loss in the plasma eventually significantly affects direct photon production from fragmentation and jet–photon conversion, similar to hadron suppression in central heavy-ion collisions. But this only causes about 40% decrease in the total production of direct photons, due to the mixture with other direct photon sources.