With slightly blurred images you can use the sharpen filters like Unsharp mask, but I feel that your image is too blurry to be done anything about. Sorry!
I get a similar effect with HDR toning when I set the method to Highlight Compression instead of Local Adaptation. Not sure why it’s doing that with you though. You could try applying a second HDR Toning, this time setting it to Equalize Histogram.
Is the background transparent? Blend modes won’t work on transparent background, you need to add a layer beneath the multiply layer and fill it with a color.
Use the path selection tool. With the pen tool selected, hold ctrl + alt and click inside the path that you want to select. You can hold ctrl + alt + shift to quickly select multiple paths.