vilains range

Hi all,
I just cant seem to assign vilains a range.
I can understand loose players have a wider range than tight players, but,
how do i go about narrowing it down ?
do we look at the texture of the flop and then eliminate certain hands they could have by determening which 2 cards are the nuts ?

I read articles etc. on hand ranging, but I can't seem to improve.
they never seem to have what I think they have.

A lot of the time my hand ranging just seems to be a wild guess.
are there any easy steps to begin to get a handle on hand ranging ?

What is the first thing to think about when putting players on a hand ?
What is the thought process ?
thanks

Your questions are sort of like asking, "How do I play poker?"

Putting someone on a range is sort of like profiling. Their range starts at a certain point and you can try to narrow it down with each action they take. Start out by keenly observing people when you're not in the hand, think about their stats and what kinds of hands they would play in certain ways and see what they show up with.

A nit who plays fairly straightforward and runs like 7/5 raises UTG. You can be damned sure their range is really narrow. At a guess it's something like AK, TT+

They get called by two people and the flop is AT2 with 2 spades. The nit checks to the players. You think about the range he started with and start eliminating the hands he would take this action with. He's probably not checking AK or TT. He MIGHT check AA. So his range is now AA, JJ-KK.

Both villains check. The turn is a blank. Nit checks, 2nd villain checks, villain on Button makes a half-pot bet. Nit calls, other player folds. Nit's range is basically unchanged/

HU, river is a J, nit checks. You can be pretty sure he doesn't have top set anymore and he doesn't have JJ either, most likely, although sometimes he might. His range is fairly face up as his river check represents showdown value -- he'd like to show down cheaply as possible and hope that his big pocket pair is still good. Button checks back with Tx and nit has KK.