If you are dealing with images, use getimagesize. Unlike file_exists, this built-in function supports remote files. It will return an array that contains the image information (width, height, type..etc). All you have to do is to check the first element in the array (the width). use print_r to output the content of the array
$imageArray = getimagesize("http://www.example.com/image.jpg");
if($imageArray[0])
{
echo "it's an image and here is the image's info<br>";
print_r($imageArray);
}
else
{
echo "invalid image";
}