Big Castle

[Jacktannery]

Smaller pavement:

[atpollard]

I think the problem is that the pavement in the sun looks so faded out and lacking of contrast and detail, while the shadows should darken the pavement without adding contrast and detail. In your examples, the pavement in the shadows appears far more sharp of an image than the pavement in the light.

Someone more skilled in Photoshop will need to suggest a technical fix, but visually, darkness should not add detail - it should remove it.

I hope that helps ... PS, great work.
Arthur