[pdftex] gif --> eps --> pdf. HELP ME.

[chiari mario]

Dear All,

Please help me, a very simple minded user :-(.

I have a picture.gif I wish to embed in a .tex file. Eventually, I need
both .dvi and .pdf output.

This is what I get. I tried two different route.

First way:
A1- Open picture.gif by Corel
A2- export to both .eps and .pdf format
A3- LaTex and respectively pdflatex

.dvi output is fine
In the .pdf output, the picture is very small, in the middle of a new page.
It seems that an entire new page has been imported. Why? 

Second way:
B1- Open picture.gif by Corel
B2- export only to .eps format, get picture.eps
B3- epstopdf picture.eps to picture.pdf

I can see picture.pdf. (AcrobatReader display a page as large as the picture)
When I pdflatex my original .tex source, the .pdf output has the picture in
the correct place, with the correct size, but it is all darkened. Why?

Note, Corel .eps output had some  dirty (both before the %!PS-Adobe-3.0
EPSF-3.0 line and after the last line %%EOF) that I had to clean by hand as
to succeed to run pdflatex on it. 

Truly thanks
mario

ps I had a similar problem a few months back, and got a few replies.
Unfortunaltely, what I filed in my mail archives doesn't help me now.