FRANKFORT — It won't be just your picture that looks different when you renew your driver's license starting later this year.

        For the first time in more than 20 years, the state is overhauling the look of Kentuckians' driving licenses and identification cards to make them more difficult to duplicate or alter.

        Steve Coffey, assistant director of the state division of driver's licensing, said one big change is in store for young people. For those under 21, the front of their card will have the photos and information in a vertical format instead of horizontal alignment. Big letters will designate if the driver is “Under 21” or “Under 18,” and will show the date they turn 18 or 21.

        “Law enforcement officials and liquor-store clerks will love them,” Mr. Coffey said.

        The new cards, which will feature digitized photos and signatures, and bar codes with encoded information, are expected to begin circulating in November. They are to be phased in over four years.

        The state will have to pay about 60 cents more — up from 90 cents to $1.50 — to make each of the 1.2 million new cards.

        “Whether that cost will be passed on to drivers will be determined by the policy-makers,” Mr. Coffey said.

        Drivers now pay $8 at circuit clerks' offices to get a license for four years. ID cards, good for four years, cost $4.

        Every four or five years, the state has made slight changes in the design of the licenses and ID cards, “but nothing like we will do this year,” Mr. Coffey said. He noted that Social Security numbers were removed in 1996, and that classes of vehicles were placed on the cards in 1990. Photos were added to licenses about 20 years ago.

        The most noticeable change in the new licenses, he said, will be “how much more attractive they will be.”

        The new ones will be more colorful and contain a Kentucky symbol to promote tourism, he said.

        A final design has not been chosen, but Mr. Coffey said they will be the same size as current licenses and look like credit cards.

        On the back of the new licenses will be at least two bar codes. Police and store owners will be able to use card scanners on laptop computers in their cars or on their counters to compare the official information on file with what the card says.

        The driver's weight no longer will be listed on the front of the card, though it will be contained in a bar code. A place to be listed as an organ donor will remain on the back of the cards, and a driver's specific restriction or restrictions will be on the front of the card.

        The cards for underage drivers will show bartenders and liquor-store clerks who is old enough to buy alcoholic beverages, said state deputy Alcoholic Beverage Control Commissioner Dan Gahafer.

        “With the current system, there are so many ways to alter a driver's license,” he said. “This will help store owners, who are liable for selling alcoholic beverages to underage people. Nothing is foolproof, but it is much better than the system we have now.”

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