Statements works in SQL, but not in PDO - mysql

Question

I'm converting from SQL to PDO, and everything has gone well until this statement.
My SQL does what it should and does NOT output the message "This user has no private images". But for some reason, when changing to PDO, the same message is shown when it should not be.
Any ideas?
Original SQL:
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM tbl_private_photos WHERE profile = $usernum AND photo_deleted != 'Yes' LIMIT 1");
if (mysql_num_rows($result)!==1) { die("This user has no private images");}
My PDO:
$sql = "SELECT * FROM tbl_private_photos WHERE profile = :usernum AND photo_deleted != 'Yes' LIMIT 1";
$q = $conn->prepare($sql); // the default way of PDO to manage errors is quite the same as `or die()` so no need for that
$q->bindValue(':usernum',$usernum,PDO::PARAM_INT);
$q->execute();
if($r = $q->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)!==1)
{
die("This user has no private images");
}

Answer 1

PDO::fetch() returns in this case an array or false. You don't want to compare the fetch result explicitly to the integer 1 then assign it to a variable--it will always be true because a 1 !== array() is always true, and 1 !== false is always true.
Instead you should see if your result set is empty or false.
Try this instead:
$r = $q->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
if(empty($r))
{
die("This user has no private images");
}