I should first explain my quirky workflow: I have two catalogs, one "WIP" for raw imports and one "Photographs_01" which are developed, edited and keyworded.
Imported raw files go into WIP
Edit > develop > rank > edit > develop...
Keyword the >=1-star images
Export >=1-star images as dng's
Import those into "Photographs_01"
I do this because it is a way for me to ensure that all the "Photographs_01" images are developed. As an amateur it may be a few weeks between WIP import and editing. That's longer than my brain can remember, and for me it solves the, "Oh I forgot about developing and keywording that shoot from xxx" problem. Theoretically all the images in Photographs_01 should be either dng's (or a tiff if it was scanned).
Watching Michael and Seth got me motivated to clean up my keywords, so I did. In the Photographs_01 catalog. The keywords in that catalog are now all organized with hierarchies, etc. So not-so-smart me exports the keyword list from Photographs_01 into WIP. Now I essentially have a duplicate mess. The old keyword mess associated with the raw images that were in WIP and the new, beautifully-organized (a relative term) that came over from Photographs_01 with parent / child relationships and all.
Other than going through keyword by keyword and assigning the "correct" keyword to images then deleting the old duplicate keyword, is there a better way? It's a bit of a daunting task, and before I start I wanted to ask. You never know...
Here's an example: WIP has the following keywords, all at a top level with no parent/child relationship:
United States, Ohio, Holden Arboretum
Photographs_01 has the same keywords, but organized:
WORLD LOCATIONS > Continents > North America > United States > Ohio > Holden Arboretum
All nine keywords now exist in WIP, but none are assigned to the "beautifully organized" keyword list from Photographs_01.
Dave