"For some reason I can't use Lighting Effects 
do I have to select something or can I just apply it to the entire picture?"
You have CS6 or CC? As with anything in PS, there are many ways to do this. One is in the Fliter tab. Choose Render and Lighting Effects.
I don't know your level in using PS but a course from a local community college or camera store may help. Or you can just fiddle around with the settings until you get what you are after.
Remember one most main point, layers are your best friend. Use them. 
I have CC 2014. I took a course at my local community college for each Lightroom and Photoshop but I actually learned a lot more from some fellow car enthusiasts and through YouTube believe it or not haha. Reason being is because I didn't do very well in those classes and because those fellow car enthusiasts edit their photos similar to the style that I edit mine in so the advice and tips that they gave me led me closer to what I wanted to achieve, in comparison to what the teacher taught us.
For instance, this was something that I was trying to go for: Ferrari F12 Berlinetta (not my photo, a buddy of mine took this) Sort of like a picture you'd capture in say Forza, Gran Turismo, or some sort of racing video game.
But instead, I got this (please see attached):
This was also another effect that I wanted to have in my photos shooting at this particular mall but I just cannot figure out how he's doing it (C63 AMG). We went to the same event and I just decided that for all the photos where you can see the background/the sky, I'm just going to give them all that summer look, like what I did with this Ferrari F12 but to me personally, the picture overall still looks too hard in general.
Another example would be like this i8. You can easily tell that the background is somewhat desaturated and the highlights were brought down significantly. I know he's using a combination of layers but other than a bunch of layers, I can't figure out how he's adding that gaming effect to his pictures.
these four, for example:
Well you stripped all the exif from the samples. The first two are pretty useless for sharpness. The last two show problems. If I had the exif I might be able to tell if it is a camera/lens issue or you.
A little editing in PS helps but it is still not super sharp. U/L another with the exif intact.
Check this out.
EXIF is the data from the camera at the moment of the shot. Whatever software you are using is stripping it from the photo.
Also do not convert the photo to png. Make a regular jpg.
"I took a course at LR and that's how I know how to use LR haha."
You can easily set the correct parameters in LR with the Eport function. I thought you new how to use LR? Yes, no? 
