Prepare like the pros. Professionals have several trade tips that are great ways for the amateur painter to make their DIY project a little easier to handle.
Firstly, if you are using multiple cans of the same paint, it’s a good idea to ‘box’ your paint. Boxing your paint is the name given to emptying and mixing several cans of the ‘same’ colour paint into one large tub. This will eliminate any slight colour differences between different tins of the same colour and ensure that your colours are completely uniform.
Priming your surface is a must when painting new drywall or painting over a dark colour. (If you are painting onto a light colour or a plastered wall, then you should be okay to paint straight on with the top coat.) Pro Tip: Mix a little of your top coat paint into the primer. This trick greatly enhances the primers function, which is to completely hide the primed surface. This is called ‘tinting the primer’.