If your goal is validation (i.e. this is a JPG/PNG) and stripping of EXIF data it is entirely possible to write your own parser in a managed and safe language in less than 500 lines of code without sacrificing any performance.
Don’t load them into memory, parse them as a stream byte-by-byte in accordance with the standard for the codec, check every offset before seeking, and reject images that don’t conform to the standard.
Don’t load them into memory, parse them as a stream byte-by-byte in accordance with the standard for the codec, check every offset before seeking, and reject images that don’t conform to the standard.
And of course, a ton of fuzzing to accompany it.