Few basic guidelines to remember when spraying. Actually, graco has a .pdf manual on their site somewhere on basics as well. Keep in mind that the pressure and tip size will give you a specific amount of paint per minute outputted in the fan pattern; which is basically a thick line. Its length depends on your distance from the surface, which directly effects the dispersion of paint. If you move your gun away from the surface your line gets larger, but the same amount of paint/minute is being spread out over that larger surface area.
1. With the gun moving, start your full trigger just before the area you intend to paint.
2. Keep the gun aimed at a right angle to the surface, ie, directly at it, as opposed to at the angle as much as possible(...until you become comfortable with measured speed changes)
3. Keep the gun's distance from the surface the same from start to finish. This is important This also helps, because if you look at your last stroke and it looks like it needs twice as much as you just put on, you can quickly go over it the same way, at the same speed. Or much faster if only a little more is needed. The sooner the better as the paint starts forming its texture quickly.
4. Keep your gun speed the same, which gives you an even coat
5. If you have to trigger on, or trigger off with the gun still pointing at the surface your spraying, trigger off or on quickly. (problem with airless gun design, although, supposedly reduced significantly with Graco's newest Fxt and Contractor line guns)
6. On the next stroke, overlap 50%.
Those are the basics, but some others helped me out:
6. Be ready...when spraying something important like a door. Its stressful to have to go fix something/mask something right in the middle of spraying a door. I always carry a tiny wisk broom around for dirt/dust lying at the bottom of the door, you can also spray the dirt away in various ways.
7. Think it through. For example, when doing a door and it's trim, make practice strokes while imagining where the fan pattern is going to be putting the paint. This allows you to avoid second guessing and putting too much paint on.
8. Be a robot (something i heard while spraying autos)
Triangle pieces of cut-out cardboard can be helpful for masking doors open.
I personally spray doors up and down, with the gun turned sideways so i can spray directly at it near the bottom. Corners are supposed to be spray this way as well (aimed directly at the corner).