Validate image from file in C#

JPEG's don't have a formal header definition, but they do have a small amount of metadata you can use.

• Offset 0 (Two Bytes): JPEG SOI marker (FFD8 hex)
• Offset 2 (Two Bytes): Image width in pixels
• Offset 4 (Two Bytes): Image height in pixels
• Offset 6 (Byte): Number of components (1 = grayscale, 3 = RGB)

There are a couple other things after that, but those aren't important.

You can open the file using a binary stream, and read this initial data, and make sure that OffSet 0 is 0, and OffSet 6 is either 1,2 or 3.

That would at least give you slightly more precision.

Or you can just trap the exception and move on, but I thought you wanted a challenge :)

This should do the trick - you don't have to read raw bytes out of the header:

using(Image test = Image.FromFile(filePath))
{
    bool isJpeg = (test.RawFormat.Equals(ImageFormat.Jpeg));
}

Of course, you should trap the OutOfMemoryException too, which will save you if the file isn't an image at all.

And, ImageFormat has pre-set items for all the other major image types that GDI+ supports.

Note, you must use .Equals() and not == on ImageFormat objects (it is not an enumeration) because the operator == isn't overloaded to call the Equals method.

A method that supports Tiff and Jpeg also

private bool IsValidImage(string filename)
{
    Stream imageStream = null;
    try
    {
        imageStream = new FileStream(filename, FileMode.Open);

        if (imageStream.Length > 0)
        {
            byte[] header = new byte[30]; // Change size if needed.
            string[] imageHeaders = new[]
            {
                "BM",       // BMP
                "GIF",      // GIF
                Encoding.ASCII.GetString(new byte[]{137, 80, 78, 71}),// PNG
                "MM\x00\x2a", // TIFF
                "II\x2a\x00" // TIFF
            };

            imageStream.Read(header, 0, header.Length);

            bool isImageHeader = imageHeaders.Count(str => Encoding.ASCII.GetString(header).StartsWith(str)) > 0;
            if (imageStream != null)
            {
                imageStream.Close();
                imageStream.Dispose();
                imageStream = null;
            }

            if (isImageHeader == false)
            {
                //Verify if is jpeg
                using (BinaryReader br = new BinaryReader(File.Open(filename, FileMode.Open)))
                {
                    UInt16 soi = br.ReadUInt16();  // Start of Image (SOI) marker (FFD8)
                    UInt16 jfif = br.ReadUInt16(); // JFIF marker

                    return soi == 0xd8ff && (jfif == 0xe0ff || jfif == 57855);
                }
            }

            return isImageHeader;
        }

        return false;
    }
    catch { return false; }
    finally
    {
        if (imageStream != null)
        {
            imageStream.Close();
            imageStream.Dispose();
        }
    }
}