The best answer is... it depends. If you are repainting a light item, or you are using dark-colored spray paint, you are probably fine with an all-in-one primer and paint product. However, if you are trying to repaint a dark or colorful item (like these bright orange lanterns here), or you use a light color like white, you will want to use a separate spray primer. This will give you the best chance of covering the dark item so you don't see it when you repaint it with a light color. NOTE: Even if you do everything right like using a separate spray primer and multiple coats, some dark or colorful items are just plain hard to paint. If you look closely, the white lantern in these pictures still has some orange peeking through, despite painting them with a white primer, a white paint, and then coating them at the end with a "faux stone finish" spray paint. That bright orange is hard to cover up! Keep this in mind when you are choosing colors to spray paint your items. On the other hand, the gold spray paint covered up the orange beautifully.