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When people ask I downplay the value of the photos themselves and explain that they're not any kind of finished product or anything worth keeping. They're "just a reference for me to paint from", I tell them.
I deliberately make the photos fairly unappealing in and of themselves so clients won't want them. Don't get me wrong, I try to take the best photographs I can in terms of lighting, posing, background, expression, etc, to paint from. But when I show them to the client I print them fairly small and gang up many of them on a page. I also crop in very closely on the various face shots, so close that they don't look at all like anything you'd want to put in a frame. I don't want the photographs to seem like finished works, or something a client would want to have copies of. You could even take this a step further and print them so the color is a bit "off", or print them too light, just for when the client sees them.
I also feel that giving the client the actual photo(s) you worked from devalues the painting. It also invites nitpicking. They may adore the painting when they first see it, but if given the chance to compare side by side with the original photo they might suddenly feel that, oh, her cheeks are much more red than in the photo, or not red enough, or the eyes are too light or too dark.
The painting must stand on its own merits, free from any millimeter by millimeter comparison with the photo. After all, I'm not trying to make a copy of the photo, I'm trying to improve upon it.
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