I've been doing two types of light painting mandalas. Straight and hybrid. The straight light painting mandalas are an un manipulated light paintings except for cropping it into a circle.  The hybrid light painting mandalas are very manipulated in Photoshop with tools within the program.  Here are two examples of the same mandala "Simple " one a straight image and one a hybrid.

These are both the same image of straight and manipulated 

light painting.