php image resizing script rotates portrait images from phones - php

Question

I'm using the following image resizing script for a mobile application. It works on the fly so the image is automatically resized when a user uploads one. However, some images from smartphones are rotated after the script runs. I researched this and found the cause was the image's EXIF data. I found a piece of script to insert into my own to correct this, but it doesn't seem to be working. I'd appreciate if someone could take a look and let me know what's wrong with it. I'm not an expert in php at all. Here's the code:
list($w_orig, $h_orig) = getimagesize($target);
$scale_ratio = $w_orig / $h_orig;
if (($w / $h) > $scale_ratio) {
$w = $h * $scale_ratio;
} else {
$h = $w / $scale_ratio;
}
$img = "";
$ext = strtolower($ext);
if ($ext == "gif"){
$img = imagecreatefromgif($target);
} else if($ext =="png"){
$img = imagecreatefrompng($target);
} else {
$img = imagecreatefromjpeg($target);
$exif = exif_read_data($target);
if ($img && $exif && isset($exif['Orientation']))
{
$ort = $exif['Orientation'];
if ($ort == 6 || $ort == 5)
$img = imagerotate($img, 270, null);
if ($ort == 3 || $ort == 4)
$img = imagerotate($img, 180, null);
if ($ort == 8 || $ort == 7)
$img = imagerotate($img, 90, null);
if ($ort == 5 || $ort == 4 || $ort == 7)
imageflip($img, IMG_FLIP_HORIZONTAL);
}
}
$tci = imagecreatetruecolor($w, $h);
// imagecopyresampled(dst_img, src_img, dst_x, dst_y, src_x, src_y, dst_w, dst_h, src_w, src_h)
imagecopyresampled($tci, $img, 0, 0, 0, 0, $w, $h, $w_orig, $h_orig);
imagejpeg($tci, $newcopy, 80);