I would like to get the best I can afford.
IMO, that would the be Matrox line of cards, with the P650 or P750 being the wise choices money wise.
As for the 'also rans' in the 2D arena I would recommend any ATI card above the R7500, but the R9000 and above being the wiser choices. From nVidia you would be fine with any FX5600 and above. Many FX5200s would be fine too but some of the cheaper ones have cheaper filters and have slower RAMDACs which greatly impacts 2D quality. You might not notice the cheap filters unless you are serious about your image editing.
I would really say for ATI a wise choice would be the R9600SE or R9550 and for nV the FX5600SE or the FX5700SE.
But to meet your needs the Matrox P650 seems to be the best decision, and for a tiny little bit more oomph the P750. At the point at which the Parhelia gets involved you should really seriously research every option and decide why you need that extra quality for that premium.
A recent 2D/photoshop discussion we had here, may give you more of the same info I just mentioned above;
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