I consider myself a rank amateur.
I've been around shops, done some minor stuff and then went into community college for a few semesters. I've only shot a couple pedal cars and my van fully, and done some other partial shooting (primed a car Friday).

1. There are a ton of resources for this online.
2. Get to know a local paint jobber and learn about the systems they carry. This means hopefully the guy behind the counter actively sprays and is not just a product jockey. Grab some mfgr flyers and the MSDS for the products.
3. You will get conflicting info, sometimes from the same source. There are many rules that have the exception that proves the point. The rules that most will agree with are:

Prep is 90+% of the job.
Everyone digs the part when you fire up that fresh engine, but the 30 minute break-in is preceded by many hours of careful measurement, machining, fitting, cleaning, refitting, torquing, adjusting.

The difference between a good painter and a great painter is how they deal with the inevitable issues that do happen.
Clean tools, clean surface, clean product, clean area.
Any 2-part paint or primer will kill you without a respirator.
A solid single stage color is much better to start out with instead of a metallic 2 stage or candies/flakes.

After that, there are a lot of different paths to achieve the final result.