Tempting as it may seem to use finfo_file() to validate uploaded image files (Check whether a supposed imagefile really contains an image), the results cannot be trusted. It's not that hard to wrap harmful executable code in a file identified as a GIF for instance.
A better & safer option is to check the result of:
if (!$img = @imagecreatefromgif($uploadedfilename)) {
trigger_error('Not a GIF image!',E_USER_WARNING);
// do necessary stuff
}