Because I only want to check for jpeg or png from a memory string, this is my 2 functions that are quick and don't have any dependencies :

<?php
  function is_jpeg(&$pict)
  {
    return (bin2hex($pict[0]) == 'ff' && bin2hex($pict[1]) == 'd8');
  }

  function is_png(&$pict)
  {
    return (bin2hex($pict[0]) == '89' && $pict[1] == 'P' && $pict[2] == 'N' && $pict[3] == 'G');
  }
?>

By trial and error, it seems that a file has to be 12 bytes or larger in order to avoid a "Read error!".  Here's a work-around to avoid an error being thrown:

// exif_imagetype throws "Read error!" if file is too small
if (filesize($uploadfile) > 11)
    $mimetype = exif_imagetype($uploadfile);
else
    $mimetype = false;

Windows users: If you get the fatal error "Fatal error:  Call to undefined function exif_imagetype()", and you have enabled php_exif.dll, make sure you enable php_mbstring.dll. You must put mbstring before exif in the php.ini, i.e.:

extension=php_mbstring.dll
extension=php_exif.dll

You can check whether this has worked by calling phpinfo() and searching for exif.

If the function exif_imagetype() is not available,
you can try the following workaround:

if ( ! function_exists( 'exif_imagetype' ) ) {
    function exif_imagetype ( $filename ) {
        if ( ( list($width, $height, $type, $attr) = getimagesize( $filename ) ) !== false ) {
            return $type;
        }
    return false;
    }
}